GIFT  OF 


United  States  Shipping  Board 

Emergency  Fleet  Corporation 


REPORT 

•   P?t  - 

NEW  ENGLAND  SHIPBUILDING 
CONFERENCE 

UNDER  THE  AUSPICES  OF  THE  INDUSTRIAL  SERVICE 

DEPARTMENT,  DIVISION  OF  CONSTRUCTION, 

EMERGENCY  FLEET  CORPORATION 


CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE  .BUILDING,  BOSTON,  MASS. 
OCTOBER  1,  1917 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT  PRINTING  OFFICE 
1917 


United  States  Shipping  Board 

Emergency  Fleet  Corporation 


REPORT 

OF 

NEW  ENGLAND  SHIPBUILDING 
CONFERENCE 

UNDER  THE  AUSPICES  OF  THE  INDUSTRIAL  SERVICE 

DEPARTMENT,  DIVISION  OF  CONSTRUCTION, 

EMERGENCY  FLEET  CORPORATION 

AT 

CHAMRER  OF  COMMERCE  RUILDING,  ROSTON,  MASS. 
OCTORER  1,  1917 


WASHINGTON 
GOVERNMENT  PRINTING  OFFICE 

1917 


REPORT  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  SHIPBUILDING  CONFERENCE 
UNDER  THE  AUSPICES  OF  THE  INDUSTRIAL  SERVICE 
DEPARTMENT,  DIVISION  OF  CONSTRUCTION,  EMER- 
GENCY FLEET  CORPORATION. 


CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE  BUILDING, 

Boston,  Mass.,  October  i,  1917. 

Admiral  BOWLES.  Gentlemen,  this  conference  of  shipbuilders  has  been 
called  by  the  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation;  that  is,  the  corporation 
created  by  the  shipping  act  as  a  part  of  the  Shipping  Board  activities, 
and  it  is  that  part  which  designs  and  contracts  for  new  vessels,  and  which, 
as  the  agency  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  has  requisitioned  all 
the  ships  building  in  the  private  yards  of  2,500  tons  dead-weight  and 
upward.  Now,  at  the  head  of  the  Fleet  Corporation  as  general  manager, 
its  executive  head,  is  Admiral  Capps,  and  he  has  asked  me  to  read  to  you 
the  statement  that  he  would  like  to  be  here  to  make. 

[Read  statement  as  follows :] 

This  is  the  first  gathering  of  representatives  from  the  shipyards  since  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  industrial  service  department  under  the  Division  of  Construction. 

The  time  is  opportune,  therefore,  to  say  a  few  words  as  to  the  policies  of  the  Emer- 
gency Fleet  Corporation  which  underlie  the  purposes  of  this  conference.  There  can 
be  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  paramount  national  and  world  need  for  ships — 
many  ships.  We  must  have  ships  for  our  safety;  we  must  have  ships  for  our  suste- 
nance and  for  that  of  our  allies.  These  ships  must  be  built  without  delay.  Every 
rivet  driven  now  is  so  much  gain  for  the  defense  of  our  homes  and  our  country. 

Ships  can  be  built,  however,  only  through  common  action — through  cooperation 
among  men.  Everything  which  makes  this  cooperation  prosper  counts  for  the  coun- 
try's good;  everything  which  retards  it  points  the  way  of  national  disaster. 

Now,  this  conference  emphasizes  the  benefit  of  team  play  among  shipbuilders  and 
suggests  that  the  problems  common  to  the  shipbuilding  industry  can  be  met  to  a 
substantial  degree  by  the  managers  of  this  industry  working  to  the  sole  end  of  respond- 
ing to  the  Nation's  need  with  energy  as  well  as  industrial  vision. 

Energy  and  vision  are  demanded  from  both  manager  and  shipyard  worker  alike. 
Fortunately,  the  response  in  the  sense  of  this  demand  is  encouraging.  This  confer- 
ence and  others  to  be  organized  aim  to  make  such  response  as  durable  and  effective 
as  possible. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  one  feature  of  this  conference  concerns  itself  with  the  orderly 
recruiting  of  shipyard  labor.  Here  a  word  is  in  place  as  to  the  value  of  the  public 
employment-office  scheme  undertaken  by  the  United  States  Department  of  Labor 
and  by  various  States.  As  managers  learn  increasingly  tne  use  of  this  great  resource, 
they  will  find  increasing  reason  to  commend  the  United  States  Department  of  Labor 
and  the  State  agencies  for  being  ready  in  a  time  of  great  national  emergency  to  help 

5 


6         REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

in  the  very  practical  way  of  organizing  the  labor  market.  The  only  alternative  to  such 
organization  is  a  chaotic  labor  market,  with  preventable  unemployment,  waste  of  the 
workers'  time  and  money,  and  the  holding  up  of  necessary  work  to  be  done. 

Another  feature  is  the  relation  of  public  training  resources  to  the  preparation  of  future 
skilled  workers  for  the  shipyards.  Such  training  is  an  absolute  necessity.  It  had 
best  be  under  public  auspices  and  control  always.  In  this  way  alone  is  there  assur- 
ance to  the  workers  that  the  market  will  never  be  flooded  with  superfluous  labor 
and  its  concomitant  danger  of  depressing  the  workers'  wage  and  standard  of  living. 
Finally,  one  feature  stresses  the  importance  of  a  properly  organized  and  centralized 
employment  department  in  every  shipyard.  Such  department  is  of  unmistakable 
benefit  to  every  industrial  organization.  It  is  surely  a  benefit  to  every  worker,  for 
it  means  an  end  to  reckless  "hiring  and  firing,"  to  petty  injustices,  friction,  and  ill 
adjustment  of  worker  and  work. 

Fortunately,  these  ideas  and  principles  provide  a  platform  on  which  management 
and  men  can  freely  unite  for  their  mutual  benefit  and  undoubted  benefit  to  the  cause 
in  which  shipbuilder  and  laborer  and  common  citizen  alike  are  deeply  enlisted. 

Gentlemen,  in  a  few  words  I  will  try  to  make  clear  what  our  situation 
is.  The  allies  depend  on  us  largely  for  food  and  for  supplies.  We  must 
send  great  armies  in  the  field,  and  they  must  be  sustained.  Therefore 
on  no  other  occupation  in  the  United  States  or  anywhere  in  the  world 
rests  such  great  responsibility  as  upon  the  shipbuilder  and  his  men,  for 
ships  must  be  created.  Upon  them  depends  victory;  absolutely  the 
dependence  of  victory  is  upon  ships.  The  Fleet  Corporation,  acting  for 
the  United  States,  has  to-day  awarded  contracts  for  some  270  wooden 
vessels  of  an  aggregate  tonnage — dead-weight  tonnage — of  something 
over  1,000,000.  They  have  awarded  contracts  for  two  hundred  and 
thirty  and  odd  steel  ships — cargo  vessels — of  an  aggregate  tonnage  of 
1,700,000  or  thereabouts,  and,  acting  as  the  agency  of  the  President, 
have  requisitioned  all  vessels  building  in  the  shipyards,  numbering  some 
400 — that  is,  begun  and  not  begun — amounting  in  tonnage  to  2,800,000 
tons,  so  that  we  have  projected  in  the  United  States  to-day  in  binding 
contracts  some  5,500,000  tons. 

Now,  what  is,  therefore,  your  situation  ?  You  have  come  to  a  situation 
where  you  have  as  shipbuilders  but  one  customer,  the  Fleet  Corporation, 
representing  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Now,  to  have  awarded 
contracts  and  to  arrange  for  the  distribution  of  materials  amongst  you, 
utilizing  the  whole  force  of  the  country's  resources,  to  see  that  you  are 
provided  with  materials  in  accordance  with  your  productive  capacity — 
what  is  your  situation?  As  I  see  it,  the  shipbuilding  activities  of  the 
United  States,  taking  these  merchant  shipping  and  naval  vessels  together, 
these  activities  have  increased  in  the  last  two  years  from  twelve  to 
fifteen  times.  New  shipyards  have  been  created,  the  older  ones  have 
developed  their  capacity  enormously,  and  you  are  endeavoring  to  per- 
form from  twelve  to  fifteen  times  the  amount  of  work  and  make  one 
man  do  the  work  of  three  or  four.  Now,  realizing  that  you  have  now 
but  one  customer,  the  people  of  the  United  States  represented  by  the 
Fleet  Corporation,  I  have  tried  to  picture  in  my  mind  what  the  result 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.          7 

is  of  that  situation.  The  great  speculative  opportunities  that  were 
formerly  before  you  for  getting  rid  of  your  old  and  unproductive  con- 
tracts and  taking  on  new  ones  at  high  prices — that  speculation  feature 
is  gone,  and  therefore  a  great  deal  of  the  impetus  for  the  production 
of  ships  has  necessarily  been  removed  when  the  situation  becomes,  as 
it  has,  a  national  one.  The  Fleet  Corporation  is  disposed  and  must  in 
this  situation  treat  you  liberally,  fairly,  meet  your  interests  in  every 
possible  way.  But  the  appeal  to  you  to-day  must  be  made  from  the 
point  of  view  of  your  devotion  to  the  Nation,  your  responsibilities  to 
the  people  for  what  is  an  essential,  absolutely  vital  element  of  the  war. 
You  are  perfectly  capable  of  enlarging  your  shipyards  and  buying 
machinery  and  arranging  it  for  the  production  of  this  work,  but  the 
thing  that  presents  itself  to  you  to-day — you  can  not,  and  nobody  can, 
make  one  man  do  three  or  four  men's  work.  Therefore,  it  is  necessary 
for  us,  the  Fleet  Corporation  and  you  gentlemen,  for  us  to  come  together 
and  consider  this  vital  situation — how  can  we  make  it  known  to  the 
people  that  work  for  us  and  how  can  we  draw  to  this  vital  trade  the 
forces  of  this  country  in  a  peaceful,  proper,  patriotic,  businesslike  way? 
That  is  the  matter  that  is  before  you  to-day. 

In  order  to  show  that  the  Fleet  Corporation  appreciated  the  enormous 
task  that  is  before  you,  we  have  undertaken  to  organize  an  industrial 
service  department,  whose  business  shall  be  to  help  you  in  these  tasks. 
I  am  especially  proud  to  be  connected  with  what  I  call  the  constructive 
side  of  this  war  and  this  particular  situation.  And  it  has  been  a  great 
satisfaction  to  me  that  everyone  to  whom  I  have  gone  and  presented  the 
problem  that  is  before  you,  of  organizing  your  labor  forces  for  this  under- 
taking, has  responded  to  it  at  once.  I  have  been  able,  I  am  glad  to  say, 
to  enlist  the  services  of  Mr.  Meyer  Bloomfield  and  Mr.  McNary  in  this 
undertaking,  and  I  have  charged  them  with  the  full  responsibility  of  it. 
I  feel  as  if  I  would  like  to  drop  the  flood  of  papers  that  come  for  me  in 
Washington,  and  that  I  spend  every  waking  hour  in  trying  to  regulate 
this  in  a  proper,  businesslike  way.  I  would  like  to  drop  every  one  of 
those  and  go  out  among  you  and  your  men  and  convince  you  of  the 
spirit  that  will  fill  you  when  you  understand  the  situation,  that  it  is  an 
absolutely  necessary  matter  to  get  these  men  together  and  get  the  spirit 
in  them  that  is  going  to  win  this  war.  Now,  I  can't  stay  with  you;  I 
can't  do  what  I  would  love  to  do,  go  out  and  stay  amongst  you  and  keep 
with  you,  and  so  I  am  going  to  turn  this  meeting  over  to  Mr.  Bloomfield 
on  whom  the  responsibility  will  rest  of  conducting  this  movement,  which 
I  want  you  to  understand  that  I  fully  appreciate  will  be  worth  nothing 
if  it  doesn't  represent  your  unanimous  conclusions. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  This  conference  is  a  brass-tack  conference  to  deal 
with  the  actual  problems  before  the  shipbuilders,  but  in  our  situation  we 
have  certain  friends  and  neighbors  and  coworkers  equally  interested, 
as  is  the  corporation,  in  the  job.  Therefore  we  have  the  privilege  to 


8         REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

call  on  two  or  three  guests  to-day,  who  come  officially  to  this  conference, 
to  say  a  few  words  before  we  open  the  main  business  of  our  meeting. 
First  of  all  I  shall  call  on  Capt.  Roberts,  who  has  been  sent  here  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  to  bring  us  a  message  of  the  Navy's  interest  in 
the  shipbuilding  program  which  Admiral  Bowles  referred  to. 

Capt.  ROBERTS.  The  thing  I  did  was  to  tell  Mr.  Bloomfield  to  call  on 
me  the  last  one,  because  I  expected  to  get  inspiration  from  the  inter- 
vening remarks.  I  reported  for  duty  at  the  Boston  yard  Friday, 
having  been  four  years  at  Fore  River,  and  this  order  provided  they 
have  an  officer  to  represent  the  navy  yard,  and  having  been  in  touch 
somewhat  with  Mr.  Bloomfield's  work  at  Fore  River,  I  proceeded  to 
send  for  Mr.  Litchfield,  and  we  have  a  stenographer  here  to  take  down 
the  notes,  but  I  really  would  like  to  hear  what  everyone  else  has  to  say 
before  making  any  remarks  myself. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  Secretary  Wilson  has  sent  Mr.  Clayton  to  represent 
the  United  States  Department  of  Labor,  which  is  our  side  partner  in  the 
shipbuilding  program.  One  of  the  main  purposes  of  this  conference,  and 
one  of  its  best  results,  ought  to  be  a  pretty  deep  conviction  on  the  part 
of  every  shipbuilder,  indeed,  on  the  part  of  every  employer  and  worker, 
that  the  more  effective,  the  more  successful  we  can  make  the  employ- 
ment machinery  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Labor,  the  more 
likely  are  we  to  find  success  in  the  job  ahead  of  us.  It  gives  me  pleasure 
to  call  on  Mr.  Clayton  who  brings  us  a  message  from  Secretary  Wilson. 

Mr.  CLAYTON.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  Secretary  Wilson  left 
Washington  yesterday  evening  as  a  member  of  a  commission  sent  by 
the  President  of  the  United  States  to  visit  some  10  or  12  cities  on  the 
Pacific  coast,  there  to  inquire  into  the  causes  of  the  unrest  of  which  you 
all  know  either  directly  or  through  the  reports  in  the  newspapers.  The 
Secretary  would  have  liked  very  much  indeed  to  have  attended  this 
meeting  himself.  He  is  deeply  interested  in  the  subject  of  this  con- 
ference ;  he  is  very  much  concerned  that  every  activity  in  the  Department 
of  Labor  shall  be  used  without  waste  of  time  and  without  waste  of 
resources  to  help  in  this  monumental  shipbuilding  task  in  which  you 
are  engaged,  and  he  has  given  me  a  very  brief  message  to  read  for  him, 
which  I  shall  read  now. 

[Read  message  of  Secretary  Wilson,  as  follows:] 

The  constructive  powers  of  our  country  have  been  challenged  so  far  as  the  war  has 
yet  progressed  by  no  more  important  task  than  that  of  providing  transportation  across 
the  3,000  miles  of  rolling  water  between  our  shores  and  those  of  France;  but  American 
democracy  is  proving  itself  equal  to  the  task.  The  Shipping  Board,  the  contractors 
whose  plants  are  busy  at  shipbuilding,  the  thousands  of  wage  earners  who  are  toiling 
in  them  night  and  day,  all  help  with  increasing  efficiency  to  make  our  part  in  the 
world  war  an  inspiring  spectacle  of  unified  democratic  service.  To  this  work  the 
Department  of  Labor  is  not  only  contributing  as  fully  as  its  resources  permit,  but  is 
solicitous  to  leave  nothing  undone  that  may  promote  efficiency  in  any  industrial 
service  which  our  country's  necessities  and  responsibilities  in  the  war  require.  All 
the  appropriate  resources  of  the  Department  of  Labor  are  offered  in  aid  of  the  Gov- 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.         9 

ernment's  program  for  serving  upon  the  seas  the  economical  interests  of  our  people 
and  of  all  the  peoples  with  whom  they  are  allied  in  this  war  for  democracy,  and  espe- 
cially and  to  the  fullest  extent  possible  the  experience  and  facilities  of  the  United 
States  Employment  Service  in  this  department  are  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Shipping  Board  in  furtherance  of  that  industrial  program, 

The  Secretary  meant  everything  he  said,  because  he  wants  to  put  the 
United  States  Employment  Service  entirely  at  the  disposal  of  this 
program.  Now,  perhaps,  it  may  be  that  some  of  you  gentlemen  are  not 
acquainted  with  the  United  States  Employment  Service.  It  is  not  known 
as  it  ought  to  be;  it  is  not  known  as  it  will  be  before  this  war  ends.  The 
United  States  Employment  Service  is  not  a  toy;  it  is  not  a  baby;  it  is 
not  a  beginner;  it  was  begun  10  years  ago.  The  United  States  Employ- 
ment Service  was  organized  in  the  Bureau  of  Immigration.  The  thought 
was  then  that  it  should  be  used  only  to  place  immigrants  in  some  sort  of 
employment  that  would  prevent  them  from  drifting  into  the  slums  of 
the  city  and  into  temptation  and  vice.  Shortly  after  its  organization  it 
dawned  upon  those  who  established  it  that  it  was  not  fair  to  American 
citizens  that  an  employment  service  should  be  created  solely  for  the 
benefit  of  aliens;  so  it  was  extended,  'and  they  placed  other  people  in 
employment.  It  has  grown  until  to-day  it  has  about  100  offices  scattered 
around  the  country  in  some  33  States  and  is  placing  about  35,000  people 
in  productive  work  every  month.  That  is  not  a  fraction  of  what  it  ought 
to  do ;  that  is  not  a  fraction  of  what  it  will  have  to  do  before  this  war  ends. 
England  started  about  12  years  ago  to  set  up  an  employment  agency,  and 
now  has  2,100  offices.  That  gives  you  an  idea  as  to  the  difference  in  the 
work  of  what  our  Employment  Service  has  done  and  what  England's 
has  done.  Our  Employment  Service  must  be  extended,  must  be  made 
more  efficient  if  it  is  to  be  to  us  what  it  is  to  England  to-day.  Germany 
has  a  very  extensive  employment  service,  so  extensive  that  it  covers 
every  little  town,  and  one  of  the  reasons  that  Germany  is  so  successful 
in  this  war  is  because  it  has  so  thoroughly  organized  this  employment 
department. 

Admiral  Bowles  spoke  a  few  minutes  ago  about  the  labor  market. 
There  isn't  any  such  thing  as  a  labor  market  in  the  United  States. 
Instead  of  this  we  have  a  series  of  accidental  conditions  that  get  us 
nowhere.  Labor  market — why,  the  word  "market"  implies  organiza- 
tion, forethought,  and  we  haven't  any  such  thing.  When  a  man  gets 
out  of  a  job  in  this  country,  he  finds  another,  and  when  the  jobs  wants 
a  man  you  will  advertise  or  send  a  man  out  to  hunt  for  somebody,  or  you 
will  put  a  sign  on  your  door  and  hope  somebody  will  come  along  that  will 
fit  the  job.  We  haven't  any  labor  market.  Now,  the  Department  of 
Labor  has  a  plan  fairly  worked  out  for  the  extension  of  this  Employment 
Service  system  until  it  reaches  and  meets  your  needs.  It  intends  to 
start  that  work  immediately.  The  plan  is  dependent  somewhat  upon 
the  goodness  of  Congress,  and  we  have  had  in  Congress  for  several  months 
a  bill  for  additional  funds,  because  we  foresaw  this  thing  which  came 
18713—17 2 


10      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

upon  us ;  but  we  have  hopes  that  Congress  is  at  last  going  to  see  the  need 
and  give  us  the  money.  Whether  they  give  us  that  money  or  not,  the 
Department  of  Labor  is  coming  to  your  rescue  and  do  what  it  can,  and 
the  Employment  Service  is  going  to  be  a  most  valuable  aid  to  your 
program. 

Now,  in  conclusion  I  want  to  say  this:  No  employment  system  is 
valuable  unless  it  is  utilized.  England  found  by  experience  that  an 
employment  service  system  is  of  most  benefit  when  it  is  made  the  sole 
source  of  obtaining  labor.  It  sounds  a  little  funny,  but  they  don't  hire  a 
man  when  he  calls  at  the  door  of  the  factory ;  they  send  him  down  to  the 
employment  office.  "If  you  want  a  job,  go  down  to  the  employment 
office/'  and  the  reason  for  that  can  be  given  to  you  in  half  a  dozen  words. 
The  other  day  I  happened  in  Philadelphia  to  be  ip  an  employment 
office,  and  they  told  me  that  that  morning  they  had  counted  800  men 
at  the  shipyards  asking  for  work,  but  had  been  able  to  hire  only  50. 
They  needed  1,500  men.  Why  didn't  they  hire  the  other  750?  Because 
none  of  the  other  750  had  the  qualifications.  It  isn't  the  shortage  of 
labor,  it  is  the  shortage  of  competent  labor.  You  can  get  1,000  men  to 
call  at  your  yard;  you  can't  pick  more  than  10  per  cent  of  them  that 
can  be  used.  The  others  don't  know  anything  about  shipbuilding. 
We  have  got  to  organize  our  forces  into  two  departments — one  to  find 
labor,  the  other  to  make  that  labor  competent.  The  Department  of 
Labor  wishes  to  be  of  service  at  both  ends  of  that  most  important  work. 
We  will  help  you  to  find  your  labor.  We  also  want  to  help  you  make 
the  labor  efficient  after  you  obtain  it,  not  to  send  you  men  that  can  not 
be  used.  Therefore,  we  should  take  up,  I  think,  the  English  custom  of 
sending  all  those  men  down  to  the  employment  office. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIEUD.  A  word  about  the  underlying  reason  for  calling  the 
first  shipbuilders'  conference  here  in  New  England.  Of  course,  in  a 
way  it  is  a  logical  thing  to  start  from  here  and  go  to  other  zones  in  the 
course  of  time,  as  I  think  we  shall,  but  there  was  a  very  special  reason 
for  calling  the  first  conference  right  here.  The  main  reason  is  that  a 
peculiar  combination  of  cooperating  agencies  may  be  found  in  this 
district.  In  the  first  place,  our  chamber  of  commerce  from  the  beginning 
of  the  war  has  had  its  active  committees  on  shipbuilding,  maritime 
service,  and  so  on.  In  the  next  place,  the  United  States  employment 
office  and  the  State  scheme  of  employment  offices  have  been  at  the  very 
active  and  abundant  disposal  of  the  shipbuilding  industry.  The  de- 
tailed story  of  that  you  will  hear  in  the  course  of  the  day,  and  it  is  very 
important  that  you  hear  of  it  in  detail  so  that  if  the  same  type  of  co- 
operation does  not  obtain  in  your  district  it  is  for  you  to  find  out  the 
reason  why  and  to  get  them  on  their  job.  You  will  be  very  much  im- 
pressed, I  venture  to  say,  right  now  at  what  you  will  hear  and  see  in  con- 
nection with  that  cooperation.  If  we  were  to  send  you  a  thousand 
circulars  a  month  pointing  out  how  things  ought  to  be  done,  I  don't 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       II 

believe  you  would  get  as  much  practical  benefit  as  you  will  when  you 
hear  from  the  actual  heads  of  these  offices  just  how  they  fill  a  shipyard 
requisition,  and  you  are  here  to  get  the  practical  points  connected  with 
the  organizing  of  labor  supply. 

Now,  the  next  cooperative  agency  has  been  our  Massachusetts  Board 
of  Education.  They  have  studied  the  job  of  training  different  ship- 
yard help,  and  they  worked  on  it  and  delivered  the  goods,  and  you 
want  to  hear  that  story,  because  in  the  different  States  you  come  from 
you  have  a  board  of  education,  you  have  a  scheme  of  vocational  educa- 
tion, and  now  under  the  new  law  providing  Federal  aid  to  every  State 
there  is  a  very  immediate  reason  why  you  should  see  how  far  you  can 
get  money  for  the  training  of  shipyard  help.  Therefore  I  am  going  to 
call — before  we  get  down  to  the  other  sections  of  the  program — I  am 
going  to  call  on  the  Massachusetts  commissioner  of  education,  who  has 
been  behind  this  work  with  his  deputy,  Mr.  Small.  I  am  going  to  call 
on  Commissioner  Payson  Smith  to  say  a  word  on  the  shipyard  training 
problem. 

Mr.  SMITH.  If  I  am  to  keep  to  the  keynote  set  by  the  officer  at  the 
beginning  and  make  this  a  brass-tack  conference,  my  contribution  should 
be  very  brief.  Remarks  will  be  made  by  Deputy  Commissioner  Small,  who 
is  directly  responsible  for  the  plan  of  vocational  education  and  has  been 
directly  in  touch  with  whatever  program  has  been  inaugurated  that 
will  be  of  particular  interest  to  you.  I  ought  to  say  that  this  scheme 
or  system  of  vocational  education  in  Massachusetts  which  it  is  proposed 
to  have  helped  in  this  program  is  only  that  of  a  lo-year-old  boy,  and 
therefore  not  organized  to  the  extent  and  efficiency  that  our  scheme  of 
general  education  perhaps  has  been;  but  this  scheme  of  vocational 
education  was  organized  a  little  less  than  10  years  ago  in  order  to  sup- 
plement a  form  of  education  we  already  had  in  order  that  we  might 
make  our  boys  and  girls  economically  efficient.  That  scheme  of  edu- 
cation was  set  up  for  the  benefit  of  the  future  of  Massachusetts,  for  the 
service  of  Massachusetts,  and  for  the  service  of  the  Nation.  And  I  want 
to  say  to  you  gentlemen  that  whatever  the  State  of  Massachusetts  has 
in  its  organized  departments — I  am  sure  I  can  speak  for  all  of  them  when 
I  speak  of  one — everything  is  at  the  service  of  the  Nation  at  any  time, 
but  particularly  at  this  time,  and  this  vocational  education  of  ours  is 
in  every  way  it  is  possible  to  be  at  your  service. 

Now,  then,  I  want  to  point  out  to  you  just  two  or  three  of  the  practical 
difficulties,  perhaps,  that  obtain  in  the  adaptation  of  this  system  of 
education  to  any  peculiar  difficulty  or  any  peculiar  situation.  In  the 
first  place,  we  have  to  consider  that  education  is  a  long-term  proposition 
and  that  we  who  are  engaged  in  these  programs  of  education  for  the 
youth  of  America  must  think  not  only  of  the  America  of  the  present,  but 
the  America  of  the  future.  President  Wilson  has  said  that  we  have  gone 
into  this  great  world  war  in  order  that  we  may  make  the  world  safe  for 


12      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

democracy,  and  a  million  or  more  of  our  young  men  have  enlisted  in  this 
great  army  and  millions  more  are  ready  to  rally  that  this  thing  may  be 
accomplished,  as  it  will  be  accomplished.  We  have  millions  of  other 
young  men  who  are  engaged  in  other  pursuits,  and  their  business  is  to 
make  democracy  safe  for  the  world,  and  we  of  America  have  appreciated 
and  believe  if  we  are  going  to  make  democracy  a  safe  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  the  people  we  must  have  an  intelligent,  efficient  citizen.  We 
who  are  interested  in  education  are  determined  that  we  will  not,  as  far  as 
possible,  make  the  mistake  England  made  at  the  beginning  and  reduce 
the  efficiency  of  education,  but  rather  we  will  try  to  make  it  more  efficient 
and  more  productive  of  the  results  we  ought  to  aim  for,  for  the  future  of 
America  must  keep  true  to  its  fundamental  purpose,  and  we  have  our 
long-term  program  that  must  be  carried  out.  We  want  to  address  our- 
selves to  that  task  fully  and  just  as  conscientiously  as  we  can  in  order  that 
there  will  be  no  defect  that  will  appear  in  the  future  in  that  line.  Now, 
again,  we  appreciate  that  while  we  do  want  to  keep  this  scheme  of  voca- 
tional education  in  line  with  these  future  needs,  we  also  realize  that  in 
order  that  there  shall  be  that  future  of  America,  the  America  of  the 
present  must  do  its  part.  Schools  are  going  to  be  obliged  to  conform  to 
various  demands  that  are  going  to  be  made  upon  them  in  order  that  they 
may  be  of  service  in  this  exigency,  and  this  vocational  scheme  of  ours  may 
be  adapted  to  that.  What  we  are  very  anxious  to  do  is  to  learn  what 
lessons  we  ought  to  out  of  this  crisis  that  exists  just  now  for  vocational 
education  of  the  tuture.  All  of  us  are  having  shown  to  us  just  now  some 
weaknesses  that  we  did  not  know  before  we  had.  I  am  entirely  con- 
scious of  the  tact  that  education  in  our  country  is  showing  now  that  there 
are  certain  points  with  regard  to  which  it  has  been  neglected,  and  that 
we  ought  to  learn  those  lessons  out  of  the  present  crisis  to  make  our 
education  of  the  future  more  efficient  as  a  long-term  proposition.  That 
is  what  we  want  to  do.  Your  problems  are  a  part  of  that.  The  other 
thing  is  to  make  use  of  this  education  as  far  as  we  can  in  the  crisis  that 
exists.  Mr.  Small  is  going  to  tell  us  just  how  far,  as  he  has  studied  the 
situation,  we  have  gone  and  how  far  we  can  go. 

I  want  to  point  out  to  you,  however,  two  obstacles.  In  the  first  place, 
the  industries  are  lacking  in  material.  These  boys  who  ordinarily  would 
be  going  into  the  school  at  14,  15,  16,  and  17  are  now  being  called  off  by 
all  kinds  of  industries,  by  the  high  wages  that  are  being  paid,  and  instead 
of  having  the  material  in  the  way  of  young  men  to  be  trained,  we  lack 
that  material  because  they  are  not  going  to  the  school.  Therefore,  it 
is  the  work  of  the  school  to  extend  the  school  into  the  industry,  and  that 
means  cooperation  of  the  men  in  charge  of  the  industry,  and  that  cooper- 
ation will  be  given,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  haven't  this  material, 
it  having  been  drawn  away  from  them  by  reason  of  the  present  situation. 
The  other  thing  is  that  these  vocational  schools  of  ours  and  all  of  our 
activities  rely,  as  all  other  public  activities  do,  upon  funds,  and  upon 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       13 

funds  to  be  raised  by  public  taxation,  upon  public  funds  that  we  can  not 
draw  upon,  Government  funds,  except  within  certain  limitations  of  a 
statute  which  was  enacted  not  for  war  times,  but  for  peace  times.  We 
have  no  unusual  source  to  draw  upon,  and  we  still  have  to  go  before 
these  various  Government  bodies  to  defend  any  proposition  we  may  put 
up.  Our  appropriations,  limited  as  they  have  been,  have  been  made 
available  by  action  of  a  legislature  or  by  council  of  towns.  Therefore, 
there  will  be  limitations  upon  your  service,  our  ability  to  go  into  this 
work,  because  of  the  fact  that  we  may  not  always  be  able  to  carry  a  city 
council  or  a  committee  upon  ways  and  means  or  a  State  legislature,  and 
as  far  as  we  are  able  we  would  be  glad  and  willing  to  go,  but  I  think  you 
will  find  in  the  main  job  you  have  our  interest  is  with  you,  and  we  will 
be  willing  to  cooperate  in  every  way  we  can,  bearing  in  mind  always  to 
make  our  education  count  not  only  for  the  day  and  the  moment,  but  for 
the  time  that  is  to  come. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  We  want  to  make  this  a  real  conference.  We  want 
to  have  all  sorts  of  questions  brought  up  and  the  session  carried  on  in  the 
most  informal  way.  It  was  not  the  idea  to  have  a  day  of  set  subjects, 
but  to  come  and  talk  and  get  down  to  the  actual  job  of  the  shipyard. 
By  and  by  Mr.  McNary  will  take  up  the  industrial  end  of  the  program, 
and  I  think  you  will  find  that  the  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation  has  been 
pretty  busy  shaping  up  perhaps  the  most  far-reaching  scheme  of  indus- 
trial training  this  country  has  ever  known.  Now,  nothing  will  help  the 
informal  character  of  this  conference  so  much  as  to  know  who  is  who, 
and  with  your  permission  I  am  going  to  interrupt  the  program  a  moment 
for  a  rapid-fire  self -introduction  and  each  man  will  please  rise  and  give 
his  name  and  position,  and  if  everyone  will  do  that  we  will  get  an  idea  of 
who  is  here  and  perhaps  it  will  help  in  the  talks  that  are  to  come. 

[Gentlemen  give  names  and  positions  as  requested.] 

Admiral  BOWLES.  Mr.  Bloomfield  and  gentlemen,  I  think  you  ought 
to  direct  your  attention  here  to-day  to  four  propositions,  and  everything 
that  will  be  brought  before  you,  and  the  discussion,  I  hope,  will  be  directed 
to  these  conclusions.  First,  I  hope  you  will  agree  that  production  will 
not  be  increased  by  the  process  of  robbing  one  another  of  employees  of 
any  class.  I  hope  you  will  agree  upon  some  method  of  distribution  of 
the  available  shipbuilding  talent,  by  which  it  will  be  put  to  the  best  use 
but  by  which  no  one  will  be  crippled.  Now  that,  of  course,  can  be  done 
by  arrangement  between  you  on  some  sensible  proper  line.  I  also  hope 
you  will  agree  that  it  is  necessary  to  train  your  employment  men.  I 
know  that  there  are  throughout  the  United  States  thousands  of  young 
men — young  lawyers,  young  professional  men — who  are  willing  to 
volunteer  their  services  to  assist  you  in  this  work  and  whose  services  can 
be  obtained  through  the  agency  of  the  Fleet  Corporation.  I  want  you  to 
extend  a  welcome  to  those  people  and  to  adopt  a  system  of  training  for 
them  by  which  the  employment  of  men  will  be  intelligently  carried  on. 


14      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

Fourth,  I  ask  you  to  agree  to  establish  as  soon  as  possible  a  system  of 
training  in  allied  trades  to  make  them  efficient  for  shipyard  work,  to  the 
training  of  unskilled  labor  and  young  men  for  the  same  purpose.  These 
things  can  only  be  done  by  your  agreement,  your  active  cooperation,  and 
the  Fleet  Corporation  is  ready  to  spend  the  money  to  produce  the  system, 
the  burden  of  which  must  rest  upon  you  as  a  part  of  your  responsibility. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  In  view  of  this  statement  I  may  take  a  minute  to 
speak  of  the  plan  of  the  industrial  service  department.  Mr.  McNary 
will  describe  this  afternoon  a  scheme  for  intensive  training  of  teachers  for 
shipyards  on  the  basis  of  150  teachers  from  all  the  yards  for  a  six  weeks' 
course,  in  units  of  150  for  six  weeks.  Within  a  short  time  it  ought  to 
be  possible,  at  least,  to  prepare  a  large  proportion  of  the  new  help  and 
competent  help  needed.  That  part  of  the  program  will  be  described  in 
detail.  We  are  going  to  call  probably  in  Washington  before  long  a 
technical  conference  of  employment  managers  alone.  The  employment 
managers  will  be  asked  to  come  there  in  order  to  agree  on  certain  funda- 
mental principles  and  standard  practices  in  the  hiring  and  handling  of 
help.  Now,  there  are  shipyards,  to  be  sure,  which  have  set  a  very  high 
standard  in  that  field,  but  like  every  other  industry  in  the  country  there 
is  a  good  deal  to  be  done  in  jacking  up  employment  work  so  as  to  secure 
a  proper  flow,  a  proper  assignment  of  help  to  suitable  jobs,  to  secure 
more  effective  methods  .of  stabilizing  help  and  reducing  the  large  turn- 
over of  employees  which  exists  even  in  our  shipyards. 

Now,  we  have  two  problems  in  the  help  field — getting  help  and  keeping 
help — and  each  is  some  job.  The  employment  managers  will  be  asked  to 
come  for  the  purpose  of  formulating  a  program.  Your  companies  have 
already  been  asked  by  the  corporation  to  fill  out  a  blank  which  will  be 
sent  weekly  to  the  industrial  service  department,  which  will  enable  the 
department  and  the  corporation  to  have,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  a  weather- 
bureau  chart  covering  the  flow,  the  scarcity,  and  possibly  the  adjusting 
of  labor  flow  in  certain  districts.  Now,  so  far  as  my  own  department 
goes,  we  are  at  your  service.  The  office  is  open  to  you  at  all  times  for 
such  problems  as  you  think  come  within  its  scope  and  for  such  problems 
as  you  think  our  experience  may  be  of  some  help  in  trying  to  solve.  In 
addition  to  this,  when  my  chief  gets  ready  for  it,  some  of  us  will  be  out 
in  conference  with  you  in  going  over  your  own  employment  organization 
in  detail.  There  ought  to  be  some  practical  result  from  attention  to  the 
employment  problem  as  such.  In  addition  to  this,  the  industrial  service 
department  is  working  daily  with  the  United  States  Department  of  Labor 
in  perfecting  an  employment  machinery  which  can  respond  as  early  as 
possible  to  your  needs,  both  emergency  and  near-future  needs,  for  certain 
grades  of  help.  Finally,  there  is  this  program,  the  program  of  coopera- 
tion with  chambers  of  commerce,  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s,  and  other  sources  which 
can  build  up  a  public  sentiment  in  favor  and  encouragement  of  the  big 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       15 

task  you  have  so  that  no  one  force  at  any  stage  may  fail  to  work  in  any 
way  which  fails  to  strengthen  the  job  you  have  on  hand. 

Now,  1  am  going  to  ask  Deputy. Small  to  give  us  a  little  more  practical 
insight  as  to  how  the  State  department  of  education  is  shaping  up  in 
Massachusetts  to  help  the  shipbuilder  train  his  help. 

Mr.  SMALL.  Commissioner  Smith  informed  you  in  regard  to  there  being 
a  system  of  vocational  schools  in  this  Commonwealth.  We  have  made 
but  one  single  contact  up  to  date  in  doing  anything  for  the  shipbuilding 
industry,  and  that  is  through  the  vocational  school,  both  the  day  and 
evening  school,  which  is  located  in  Quincy,  where  also  the  Fore  River 
Shipbuilding  Co.  is  located.  Some  time  in  May  our  office  was  approached 
by  the  superintendent  of  schools,  asking — the  State  normal  educational 
schools,  or  the  expense  of  maintaining  these  schools,  is  borne  fifty-fifty 
by  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  and  the  local  community — the 
superintendent  of  schools  approached  our  office  to  know  if  the  Common- 
wealth would  go  into  a  new  department,  namely,  to  undertake  to  finance 
and  help  direct  and  train  inside  of  the  shipyard  such  men  as  were  pre- 
sented through  the  employment  department  as  desirable  men  to  train 
for  skilled  trades  common  to  shipbuilding.  That  entailed  a  new  depar- 
ture which  we  had  not  gone  into,  and  so  far  as  our  law  is  concerned  it  was 
possible  for  us  to  cooperate  only  to  the  extent  of  training  in  day  schools 
those  people  who  were  below  the  age  of  25  and  in  evening  schools  only 
those  people  who  had  already  made  contact  with  a  specific  industry. 
But  I  said  to  Mr.  Barber,  the  superintendent  of  schools,  "Whereas  that 
is  all  we  can  do  under  the  law,  we  will  certainly  do  whatever  is  possible 
to  do.  We  will  cooperate  with  you  to  train  anybody  who  presents  himself, 
so  far  as  we  know  how  to  offer  that  training,  and  we  will  go  before  the 
legislature  at  some  later  date  to  see  if  the  legal  part  of  it  can  be  straight- 
ened out  and  corrected  so  that  we  can  give  the  city  of  Quincy  State  aid 
for  all  of  them." 

At  the  present  time  we  can  give  the  city  of  Quincy  State  aid  for  only 
part  of  them,  but  we  are  cooperating  along  the  whole  line.  Now,  that 
being  the  relation  of  the  State  to  the  local  community  and  one  par- 
ticular yard,  I  will  say  something  as  to  what  we  have  done  in  that 
instance.  We  have  deemed  that  the  most  effective  kind  of  training  at 
this  stage  of  the  game  was  to  train  the  men  in  the  yard  right  on  their  jobs, 
and  so  we  have  set  up  a  definite  portion  of  each  man's  time  who  presents 
himself  for  training  to  be  under  an  instructor.  That  instructor  is  re- 
sponsible to  the  educational  department  at  the  yard  and  of  the  State, 
and  whereas  the  man  is  under  a  foreman  in  the  yard,  production  is  not 
the  main  job  of  that  period  of  time.  It  is  instruction,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  the  man  more  productive  later.  Now,  instruction  doesn't  mean 
technical  instruction,  sitting  down  with  a  book  or  the  studying  of  technical 
things,  except  as  that  is  what  the  individual  needs.  It  is  an  individual 
problem.  I  can't  come  to  you  with  any  course  of  study  and  say,  "This 


1 6      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

is  what  we  do  down  there."  What  we  do  is  to  take  the  man  who  pre- 
sents himself,  the  instructor  finds  out  what  he  needs,  and  after  a  certain 
period  of  time  in  the  shop  he  gives  him  instruction  along  that  line.  The 
matter  of  choosing  jobs  as  to  what  that  man  needs  is  a  course  of  study, 
and  I  assure  you  it  takes  pretty  highly  organized  ability  and  pretty 
carefully  directed  ability  to  select  and  choose  jobs  that  have  the  necessary 
elemental  contact  to  supplement  and  help  the  different  individuals  who 
come  along.  But  that,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  is  the  only  way  that 
education  can  come  in  and  do  anything  to  help  train  men  in  the  ship- 
building industry.  We  have  made  contact  with  men  being  trained  for 
the  mold-loft  work,  and  the  machinists  need  both  in  machining  iron, 
steel,  and  copper. 

Now,  then,  the  other  side  of  the  question  in  regard  to  what  we  are  pre- 
pared to  do  in  this  State  takes  us  away  from  the  yards.  I  believe  that 
to  the  extent  you  can  utilize  your  yards  and  your  shipbuilding  plants 
and  not  tie  up  machines  so  that  your  production  is  lessened  that  the  yard 
is  the  place  to  do  this  training;  that  it  must  be  done  upon  the  very  defi- 
nitely and  well-organized  basis  which  Mr.  McNary  and  the  experts  who 
will  be  associated  with  him  will  be  ready  to  help  you  in  planning  and 
laying  out.  But  over  and  beyond  that  there  are  in  this  State  a  number 
of  vocational  schools  located  in  the  larger  cities  of  the  Commonwealth, 
and  not  to  guess  about  this  subject,  but  to  have  it  upon  a  basis  better 
than  a  guess,  one  of  the  schools  (not  located  at  Quincy,  not  located  in  the 
metropolitan  area  but  distant  from  this  shipyard)  has  had  one  of  its  in- 
structors visit  and  make  a  good  deal  of  a  study  of  the  various  trades  car- 
ried on  in  the  shipyard  and  make  an  analysis  of  what  was  needed  and 
make  a  statement  of  what  proportion  of  the  work  can  be  done  separate 
and  apart  from  the  yard,  and  there  is  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
training  which  we  feel,  on  the  basis  of  this  information,  can  be  under- 
taken away,  separate,  and  apart  from  these  yards,  a  preliminary  training 
which  will  fit  the  individual  to  come  in  and  take  his  place  at  a  more  ad- 
vantageous stage  than  he  would  if  he  walked  in  off  the  street.  Now,  then, 
the  problem  to  do  that  piece  of  work  away  from  the  yard  is,  as  has  been 
indicated  by  Mr.  Clayton,  I  think,  the  problem  to  get  some  people  to  take 
the  training.  It  is  an  employment  training.  Commissioner  Smith  in- 
dicated to  you  that  whereas  we  are  ready  to  do  all  we  can,  we  are  limited 
as  to  funds,  because  in  this  Commonwealth  we  are  dependent  upon  local 
communities  and  then  we  come  along  and  reimburse  them. 

We  are  limited  as  to  funds  available,  but  more  serious  than  that,  we 
are  limited  as  to  individuals  available  to  take  the  training.  There  may 
not  be  any  labor  market,  as  has  been  stated,  but  certainly  the  people 
who  are  offering  themselves  for  labor  are  gobbled  up  pretty  fast,  and  there 
are  very  few  of  them  who  are  willing  to  forego  earning  for  the  purpose  of 
taking  training  in  order  to  land  a  job  some  two  months  or  three  months 
hence.  Now,  that  is  the  problem  we  need  considerable  assistance  in.  It 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       1 7 

seems  to  me  it  is  the  problem  of  employing  first  and  training  that  em- 
ployment and  paying  during  the  period  of  taking  the  training.  Now, 
then,  if  that  can  be  solved  and  the  great  number  of  conflicting  difficulties 
that  have  got  to  be  smoothed  out — if  that  can  be  solved,  there  are  a  good 
many  of  these  things  every  day.  If  it  is  green  help  we  are  going  to  train, 
absolutely  green  help  not  members  of  an  allied  industry,  there  is  a  lot  of 
this  that  can  be  done  in  Newton,  in  Springfield,  and  in  Worcester,  and 
all  over  the  Commonwealth,  and  that  is  the  one  particular  phase  of  the 
thing  that  our  board  of  education  is  particularly  interested  in.  I,  per- 
haps, have  taken  more  time  in  going  into  this  matter  than  I  should,  but 
I  wish  to  say  that  anything  we  can  do  with  the  limitations  which  surround 
us  we  shall  be  glad  to  do,  and  we  shall  be  glad  to  try  to  get  rid  of  some  of 
those  limitations  in  the  proper  way  and  at  the  proper  time. 

Admiral  BOWLES.  It  is  essential  to  us  in  the  task  we  have  before  us 
that  we  have,  as  Deputy  Small  and  Mr.  Smith  of  the  board  of  education 
have  expressed  their  approval  of  the  scheme  that  is  before  us,  their 
moral  and  their  active  support.  What  we  need  is  their  personnel  and  their 
machinery  to  be  loaned  to  us  to  meet  that  emergency.  Fortunately,  we 
do  not  have  to  deal  with  selectmen  nor  city  councils  nor  legislatures. 
Congress  has  done  this  work.  They  have  authorized  for  the  Fleet  Cor- 
poration appropriations  almost  amounting  to  one  billion  dollars  for  im- 
mediate expenditure,  and  the  authority  given  to  the  Fleet  Corporation 
for  the  construction  of  vessels  and  the  completion  of  those  requisitioned 
to-day  amounts  to  two  billion  dollars. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIEUX  We  want  to  hear  a  word  or  two  from  the  represent- 
ative of  the  Boston  Chamber  ship  committee  and  also  from  the  United 
States  Chamber  committee,  because  in  different  cities,  Philadelphia  and 
New  York  and  elsewhere,  the  local  chambers  there  have  organized  ship 
committees.  I  will  ask  Mr.  Ewing,  who  has  been  detailed  by  the  Boston 
Chamber  shipbuilding  committee,  to  say  a  word. 

Mr.  EWING.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  the  Boston  Chamber  of 
Commerce  is  very  glad  indeed  to  have  this  meeting  in  its  building,  not 
only  because  it  wants  to  be  generally  useful,  but  because  from  the  time 
we  entered  the  war  the  directors  of  this  chamber  have  felt  that  this 
was,  to  speak  mildly,  one  of  the  prime  considerations  of  the  Nation,  the 
building  of  ships.  Our  committee  under  Mr.  Fitts's  chairmanship — the 
other  members  not  being  connected  directly  with  shipbuilding,  but  rep- 
resenting various  elements  that  are  necessary  to  consider  the  problem — 
this  committee  was  appointed  and  has  had  some  experience,  which  may 
not  be  of  general  interest  to  you  as  so  many  come  from  outside  of  New 
England,  except  as  the  problems  are  probably  very  similar  in  all  parts 
of  the  seaboard.  We  tried  to  find  how  we  could  help  in  the  manufacture 
of  more  ships.  We  ran  down  one  line  of  fleets;  we  ran  down  another 
line  of  fleets.  In  the  matter  of  transportation,  for  instance,  we  found  it 
18713—17 3 


1 8      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

was  a  national  problem  and  could  not  be  handled  in  a  local  way.  The 
National  Government  had  taken  up  that  problem,  and  it  seems  to  our 
committee  the  chambers  of  commerce  can  be  most  useful  in  standing 
ready  to  give  their  services  when  called  upon  by  proper  officials.  One 
great  problem  we  found  was  this  problem  of  securing  sufficient  em- 
ployees; not  only  that,  but  the  problem  of  manufacturing  employees, 
because  it  was  necessary,  for  example,  in  one  plant  near  Boston  to  in- 
crease from  4,500  employees  to  10,000  employees  when  every  machinist 
in  the  vicinity  was  working  full  time.  We  had  a  committee  formed, 
which  was  very  representative  of  the  educational  work  in  this  vicinity — 
Mr.  Small,  of  the  State  board  of  education;  the  assistant  superintendent 
of  schools  in  Boston,  who  has  charge  of  industrial  education;  the  heads 
of  Wentworth  Institute,  Franklin  Union,  and  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology.  We  rounded  up  on  paper  all  the  schools  in  this  part  of 
Massachusetts  near  the  seaboard  that  could  be  used. 

We  then  offered  the  services  of  all  those  schools  to  the  shipbuilders  in 
this  vicinity.  What  was  the  result?  I  presume  the  same  result  that 
others  of  you  have  found  in  your  communities  and  that  the  Govern- 
ment will  find  when  it  comes  down  to  this  same  problem  here,  that  it 
isn't  the  case  of  taking  boys  and  putting  them  through  these  schools 
for  the  immediate  problem.  The  immediate  problem  is  taking  full- 
grown  men  and  giving  them  the  intensive  training  that  is  needed,  not 
only  in  the  shipbuilding  but  in  the  trades  which  make  the  parts  that  go 
into  your  ships,  which  is  just  as  important  as  the  ship  itself.  Machinists, 
for  instance,  must  work  in  plants  that  are  making  dynamos  and  all  those 
things  as  well  as  the  shipyards  themselves.  It  seemed  to  us  expedient 
to  offer  all  the  shipyard  education  that  could  be  offered  in  this  vicinity, 
which  has  been  done.  But  when  a  man  is  working  and  receiving  pay 
for  his  work,  he  isn't  going  to  leave  his  job  and  go  to  school  for  several 
months  and  then  come  back  and  earn  a  little  more  pay.  So  the  problem 
was  to  get  these  men  into  these  schools.  We  took  the  problem  up  with 
the  shipbuilders  and  also  with  the  Government  and  with  Admiral  Bowles 
before  he  was  connected  with  this  work.  What  he  has  said  this  morning 
gives  me  great  encouragement,  because  we  got  an  oral  assurance  from 
the  officials  in  Washington  that  they  would  give  as  part  of  the  cost  of 
making  ships  the  wages  of  the  men  while  they  were  under  instruction  in 
these  schools,  but  when  the  shipbuilder  himself  came  to  get  that  in  writing 
it  wasn't  forthcoming,  and  never  has  been.  But  now  the  problem,  it 
seems  to  me,  can  be  faced  in  quite  another  way  through  Admiral  Bowles's 
department  and  worked  out  to  a  satisfactory  conclusion,  because  it  is 
quite  evident  men  must  be  paid  while  thay  are  taking  this  instruction, 
and  that  the  employer,  the  shipbuilder,  can  not  very  well  take  it  out  of 
his  own  pocket  to  pay  those  men. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  probably  wouldn't  desire  the  10  per  cent,  or 
whatever  it  may  be,  of  the  wages  of  the  men  while  they  are  under  instruc- 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       19 

tion.  We  feel  here,  not  only  in  the  chamber  of  commerce  but  all  those 
other  educational  facilities  I  have  mentioned,  we  feel  it  will  be  by  far 
the  most  efficient  to  use  such  plants  as  we  have  rather  than  to  create 
entirely  new  educational  plants  as  has  been  attempted  in  one  or  two 
cases  that  we  happen  to  know  of.  It  seems  as  though  these  educational 
plants  right  around  along  the  seaboard  should  be  used  to  their  capacity- 
very  likely  could  be  used  on  two  or  three  ships.  There  is  in  some  cases 
further  expense.  In  the  city  of  Boston  schools,  for  example,  the  plant 
would  be  offered  free,  but  the  lighting,  heating,  and  instruction  would 
have  to  be  paid  outside.  In  private  and  endowed  schools  that  wouldn't 
be  the  case.  One  of  these  endowed  schools  offered  to  pay  all  expenses, 
not  including  wages,  if  a  shipbuilder  would  send  a  certain  number  of 
men  there  for  instruction;  but  they  didn't  turn  up.  The  whole  thing 
turns  upon  paying  those  men  while  they  are  under  instruction,  because 
if  they  are  not  paid  no  one  will  iurn  up  but  boys. 

I  want  to  say  that  the  Boston  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  all  of  its 
facilities  will  be  at  the  control  of  Admiral  Bowles  or  any  other  person 
who  is  working  out  this  problem  to  carry  out  and  expedite  this  work. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  Mr  Sumner  Myrick,  of  the  shipping  committee  of 
the  United  States  Chamber  of  Commerce,  will  now  speak. 

Mr.  MYRICK.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  I  suppose  it  isn't  neces- 
sary to  say  here  what  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United  States  is 
or  what  it  stands  for.  In  a  word  I  may  say,  however,  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  are  not  familiar  with  it,  that  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the 
United  States  is  made  up  primarily  of  representatives  of  all  the  cham- 
bers of  commerce,  practically  all  the  chambers  of  commerce  and  trade 
organizations,  throughout  the  country.  There  are  nearly  a  thousand  of 
such  organizations  represented  in  the  national  chamber.  Then  besides 
that  there  is  a  larg  individual  membership.  The  chamber  is  relied 
upon  very  largely  by  the  Government  to  test  out  the  sentiment  of  the 
business  men  of  the  country  in  respect  to  measures  which  the  Govern- 
ment advocates.  It  has  a  practice  of  sending  out  statements  of  these 
measures  and  taking  a  referendum — taking  a  vote  of  the  business  men 
of  the  country.  Now,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  Government  was 
very  anxious  that  the  business  men  of  the  country  should  respond  in  a 
patriotic  way  to  the  business  that  was  demanded,  and  the  chambei-was 
called  upon  to  appoint  various  committees,  and  those  committees  are 
now  actively  at  work  in  cooperation  with  the  Navy  Department.  Among 
those  committees  was  one  of  war  shipping,  and  I  have  the  pleasure  of 
being  the  vice  chairman,  and  there  are  representatives  from  various  parts 
of  the  country  on  this  committee.  Then,  in  addition  to  that,  we  have 
organized  some  25  local  committees  in  shipbuilding  districts  who  are 
cooperating  with  our  national  committee  and  with  the  shipbuilding 
committee. 


20       REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

Now,  very  briefly,  we  started  out  to  do  this:  As  has  been  stated  here 
and  as  you  all  realize,  the  fundamental  necessity  of  the  hour  is  ships. 
Armies  and  all  the  rest  of  it  are  of  no  avail  whatever  because  we  can  not 
transport  them  to  France  if  there  are  no  ships.  Now  the  first  thing  was 
to  create  a  public  sentiment  to  educate  the  people  up  to  the  idea  that 
ships  were  the  primary  and  fundamental  idea  of  the  moment.  We  have 
done  that  through  the  newspapers  and  in  various  other  ways.  We  are 
going  to  establish  a  publicity  bureau  to  act  in  cooperation  with  the 
national  committee  of  Washington  to  send  broadcast  through  the  press 
and  other  ways  the  necessity  of  ships,  to  which  we  all  agree.  We  are 
going  to  arrange  a  reel,  have  a  reel  made,  which  will  be  put  forth  in  the 
moving-picture  houses  showing,  for  example,  a  man  going  to  the  gate 
seeking  employment,  then  taking  him  through  the  yard,  showing  the 
different  work  he  does,  and  showing  steam  launches  and  things  that  will 
interest  the  general  audience,  interspersing  the  pictures  with  statements 
calling  the  attention  of  the  audience  to  the  necessity  of  ships.  Then, 
again,  we  have  done  our  little  bit  or  tried  to  in  reference  to  the  labor  prob- 
lem. At  the  very  outset  of  our  work  we  were  fortunate  to  have  the  ad- 
vice and  cooperation  of  Mr.  Bloomfield,  and  in  certain  sections  of  the 
country  we  have  accomplished  some,  we  think,  splendid  results.  In  the 
South  our  national  committeeman,  Mr.  McCloud,  of  Charleston,  went 
out  into  the  interior  towns  of  Georgia  and  South  Carolina,  had  business 
men  and  employers  of  labor  to  meet  him  and  explained  to  them  the  ne- 
cessity of  getting  laborers  down  to  the  shipyards  on  the  coast.  In  some 
districts,  Atlanta  I  recall  particularly,  one  large  employer  of  labor  said 
that  he  was  unwilling  for  anyone  to  take  labor  away  from  Atlanta, 
because  they  were  building  cantonments,  and  he  didn't  think  it  fair  that 
anyone  should  take  their  employees  away;  but  after  he  heard  the  state- 
ments of  Mr.  McCloud  of  the  necessity  of  having  ships  and  the  labor  to 
build  them  he  threw  up  his  hands;  he  was  willing  to  let  Mr.  McCloud 
have  every  employee  he  had,  and  urged  the  business  men  of  Atlanta  to 
let  their  laborers  go  until  after  the  war. 

In  some  of  those  districts  we  had  men  volunteer  and  sign  agreements 
that  they  would  upon  call  go  down  to  the  coast.  We  have  had  some 
celluloid  buttons  made  called  "Ship  laborers  reserve,"  which  those  men 
wear.  The  other  day  we  were  asked  by  one  of  the  shipbuilding  concerns 
on  the  coast  to  send  down  125  men.  We  got  130  men  out  of  one  town 
and  had  them  down  there  the  next  day.  These  men  had  enlisted,  so  to 
speak.  Now,  you  have  got  to  get  them  upon  the  question  of  patriotism. 
That  is  what  these  gentlemen  have  done  in  each  instance.  They  have 
found  splendid  response.  Make  the  men  understand  that  when  they  go 
to  the  shipyards  they  are  performing  almost  as  much  of  a  service  as  if 
they  went  to  the  trenches.  In  addition  to  that  we  have  had  some  badges 
made.  You  know  in  England  that  everyone  who  is  helping  the  Govern- 
ment to  prosecute  the  war  wears  a  badge.  There  was  nothing  of  the 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       21 

kind  in  this  country  until  we  got  these  two  badges.  We  have  sent  out 
about  9,000  of  these  badges.  Some  of  you  gentlemen  have  them  in  your 
yards.  We  have  two  sizes.  You  will  find  the  larger  is  the  one  most 
desired.  We  have  sent  them  to  the  Pacific  coast;  we  have  had  employees 
write  in  and  ask  us  to  send  them  to  them.  We  haven't  done  so,  because 
we  intend  to  have  them  sent  out  through  the  proprietors  of  the  yards 
themselves,  but  whenever  they  get  the  idea  these  employees  usually 
have  responded  by  ordering  them.  We  have  had  executives  make  up 
subscriptions  and  send  in  an  order  for  these  badges,  because  they  have 
felt  they  wanted  to  wear  them  as  much  as  their  men.  Now,  I  want  to 
say  these  badges  are  going  to  be  here  on  the  table.  If  you  want  to  take 
one,  I  hope  you  will  do  so.  I  want  you  to  be  very  careful  not  to  let  them 
get  out  of  your  hands,  because  it  is  a  testimonial,  of  course,  that  the 
laborer  is  working  for  his  country.  I  am  going  to  read  a  very  brief  state- 
ment of  the  condition  on  which  these  badges  are  presented : 

1.  The  badges  are  to  be  loaned  to  the  workers  in  shipyards  during  their  term  of 
service  and  are  to  be  worn  as  an  emblem  of  patriotic,  faithful  service  rendered  to  the 
Nation  in  time  of  war. 

2.  They  shall  be  surrendered  by  the  workers  at  the  termination  of  the  service,  and 
the  shipbuilders  shall  enforce  such  rules  as  shall  make  the  surrender  effective,  the 
purpose  being  to  confine  the  distinction  the  badges  confer  to  those  who  have  earned 
it  by  faithful  service. 

3.  That  every  worker  in  the  service  at  the  termination  of  the  war  shall  be  given  his 
badge  outright  in  the  expectation  that  he  will  preserve  it  as  a  memorial  of  his  con- 
tribution toward  making  the  world  safe  for  democracy. 

4.  That  upon  the  receipt  of  the  badges  the  shipbuilder  shall  sign  an  agreement 
containing  the  terms  herein  stated. 

It  seems  necessary  that  there  should  be  something  of  the  kind  pre- 
pared and  that  it  should  be  put  in  a  conspicuous  place  in  each  yard,  so 
that  each  man  may  know  the  terms  upon  which  his  employer  has  accepted 
the  badges.  Now,  in  this  connection  let  me  say  we  are  having  prepared 
a  shipyard  recruiting  poster. 

Those  posters  are  going  to  be  put  out  where  there  are  shipyards; 
they  will  be  put  on  express  wagons,  everywhere  they  will  be  seen,  and 
they  are  so  attractive  they  will  no  doubt  help  a  great  deal  in  the 
problems  we  have  before  us.  The  national  chamber  is  not  seeking 
any  self-glorification;  it  is  not  trying  to  interfere  with  anyone's  busi- 
ness; it  is  not  trying  to  tell  you  gentlemen  how  you  should  carry  on 
your  business.  It  has  entered  this  campaign  in  a  helpful  spirit,  and 
we  believe  we  are  doing  good.  Chambers  of  commerce  and  the  local 
committees  we  can  form.  We  are  capable  of  help,  we  think.  We  pro- 
pose to  act  in  cooperation  with  the  different  committees.  We  are  to 
have  a  meeting  in  Philadelphia  to-morrow  that  is  to  take  up  this  very 
same  problem  of  enlisting  the  laborers  in  the  State.  Whatever  we  do, 
we  shall  do  in  conjunction  with  Mr.  Bloomfield  and  the  Department 
of  Labor,  but  that  is  what  the  department  has  tried  to  do. 


22       REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

I  forgot  to  say  that  these  posters,  labels  for  shipping,  we  have  sent 
out  nearly  30,000  of  those  posters  to  the  shipyards  of  the  country. 
We  have  them  of  different  sizes.  They  are  being  put  on  the  packages 
as  they  are  shipped  from  the  factory  to  the  shipyards.  Now,  in  addi- 
tion to  getting  direct  results  from  the  shipping  posters,  the  recruiting 
posters  I  have  told  you  about,  besides  inculcating  the  spirit  in  the 
employers  of  wearing  the  badges,  there  is  psychology  in  all  this.  You 
know  you  can't  get  things  done  in  a  large  way  unless  you  have  the 
public  with  you.  If  it  is  a  liberty  bond,  or  a  Red  Cross  fund,  or  what- 
ever it  may  be,  you  have  got  to  get  the  people  stirred  up.  Now  all 
the  things  I  have  told  you  about  have  the  effect  of  interesting  the  people 
in  shipbuilding.  Every  man  who  sees  a  poster  like  that  goes  away 
with  a  new  thought  about  getting  ships  built.  Every  man  who  sees 
a  recruiting  poster,  the  same  way.  Every  man  who  sees  a  man  wearing 
a  badge  realizes  that  man  is  engaged  in  something  important  in  winning 
the  war.  So  that  while  all  these  agencies  have  a  direct  influence  in 
producing  these  things  we  desire  there  is  a  direct  psychology. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIEUX  I  want  to  recall  the  four  points  which  Admiral 
Bowles  made  and  to  confer  with  you  for  a  moment  as  to  the  action 
necessary.  Admiral  Bowles  thought  there  ought  to  be  some  united 
expression  of  opinion — not  necessarily  at  this  meeting;  it  may  be  done 
by  writing — some  expression  of  opinion  as  to  the  scamping  proposition 
in  the  shipyards,  the  raiding  of  the  working  forces.  Of  course,  there  is 
no  suggestion  implied  in  any  shape  or  manner  that  workmen  are  not 
free  to  go  anywhere,  to  follow  what  they  regard  as  their  best  interests. 
The  suggestion  of  Admiral  Bowles  is  the  possibility  of  danger  in  an  open 
or  a  private  invasion  of  one  another's  working  force.  Of  course,  the 
Emergency  Fleet  Corporation  has  absolutely  and  clearly  and  positively 
forbidden  that  practice,  and  it  means  absolutely  what  it  said  in  the  stand 
it  has  taken,  and  the  corporation  knows  exactly  how  to  deal  with  any 
such  interference  in  the  work  of  shipbuilding.  The  second  suggestion 
which  the  admiral  brought  out  is  the  distribution  of  talent.  I  recall  one 
instance  where  an  employment  manager  I  saw  in  the  office  of  his  employ- 
ment department  in  the  shipyard  was  told  by  the  head  of  a  certain  shop 
that  he  would  have  to  release  nine  men  whom  he  could  no  longer  carry. 
They  were  doing  the  sort  of  work  which  was  not  then  of  an  emergency 
nature.  In  the  first  place,  may  I  point  out  to  you  that  that  was  good 
organization  for  the  employment  manager  to  be  told  by  the  foreman 
or  leading  man  that  nine  men  could  be  disposed  of.  No.  2.  That  employ- 
ment manager  felt  it  his  duty  to  notify  the  labor  office,  saying  that  nine 
men  would  be  available  in  a  day  or  two,  so  that  employment  office 
could  get  on  the  job  and  see  what  other  shipyard,  to  begin  with,  would 
need  those  men.  Now,  that  is  good  business.  That  is  the  kind  of  thing 
the  admiral  had  in  mind  when  he  talked  about  distribution  of  talent.  I 
suppose  we  will  face  the  question  of  priority  of  labor  as  we  have  already 


REPORT  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  SHIPBUILDING  CONFERENCE.     23 

faced  the  question  of  priority  of  material,  but  short  of  drastic  action 
there  is  a  good  deal  that  can  be  done,  as  that  illustrates. 

Then,  the  training  of  shipyard  employment  officers.  It  may  be  pre- 
mature to  act  now,  possibly.  From  my  visits  to  the  shipyards,  there 
isn't  a  shipyard  in  the  country,  however  competent  its  manager — there 
isn't  a  shipyard  which  wouldn't  welcome  an  arrangement  whereby 
the  employment  men  may  be  called  together  and  exchange  ideas, 
that  .their  work  may  be  more  efficient.  Fourth.  To  establish  vocational 
education.  Is  there  any  suggestion  here  as  to  how  we  shall  cover  the 
suggestions  of  the  admiral?  Do  you  want  them  discussed?  Do  you 
want  to  take  a  vote  here,  or  would  you  prefer  to  write  to  Admiral  Bowles, 
giving  your  views  as  to  these  four  points  ? 

DELEGATE.  Of  course,  we  all  recognize  that  those  four  points  are  the 
main  points,  and  we  should  all  work  to  get  over  those  points  and  arrange 
them  to  the  convenience  of  all.  It  seems  to  me  that  anybody  who  has 
any  suggestion  to  offer  to  further  those  points  would  be  of  more  value 
to  this  meeting  than  anything  else  that  could  be  done  as  to  expressing 
our  opinion  as  to  an  agreement  on  them.  I  think  we  should  express 
them  now  and  make  an  agreement  that  we  are  unanimous  in  regard  to 
those  four  points. 

[Motion  made  and  seconded  that  this  conference  vote  that  it  be  the 
sense  of  the  conference  that  the  four  points  brought  up  by  Admiral 
Bowles  are  considered  essential  to  the  shipbuilding  program  and  have 
the  support  of  the  shipbuilders  and  their  representatives  present  to-day. 
It  is  a  unanimous  vote  of  the  conference  that  these  four  points  express 
the  sense  of  the  shipbuilders  as  to  the  fundamental  policies  in  the  ship- 
building program.] 

Mr.  McNARY.  I  will  suggest  that  the  four  points  that  you  brought  out 
be  printed  and  passed  around  at  the  meeting  this  afternoon. 

DELEGATE.  Are  those  badges  issued  by  the  chamber  of  commerce  or 
the  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation? 

Mr.  MYRICK.  They  are  issued  by  the  chamber  of  commerce,  but  they 
are  indorsed  and  authorized  by  the  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation. 

Mr.  MYRICK.  The  badges  are  all  numbered  in  the  first  place,  and  when 
they  are  given  out  you  know  the  man's  number.  I  may  say  we  have 
put  out  9,000  or  10,000  of  these  badges  and  haven't  had  any  trouble. 
The  conditions  state  that  each  yard  shall  establish  rules  and  establish 
methods  that  will  insure  the  return  of  the  badge.  There  should  be  estab- 
lished some  limited  term  of  service  before  the  badge  is  given  out.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  a  feeling  that  immediately  a  man  enters  the 
service  he  ought  to  be  appealed  to  to  stay  in  that  yard  and  do  his  bit, 
and  immediately  he  gets  the  badge  he  begins  to  have  that  feeling  of  pa- 
triotism, of  patriotic  service.  But  it  is  a  question  for  you  gentlemen  to 
determine  in  your  individual  yards. 


24      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

Admiral  BOWLES.  Mr.  Bloomfield,  the  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation 
approved  the  issue  of  these  badges  on  the  condition  that  the  chamber  of 
commerce  should  make  them  significant  of  constancy  of  labor  and  devo- 
tion to  its  work.  Now,  Mr.  Myrick  has  endeavored  to  make  these  gen- 
eral conditions  for  the  issue  to  meet  the  situation  that  was  presented  to 
him  by  the  Fleet  Corporation.  His  idea  was  that  he  should  not  draw 
up  particular  rules  applicable  to  all  shipyards,  but  should  lay  down  gen- 
eral conditions  which  they  might  make  specific  in  their  own  cases,  and 
it  seems  to  me  they  are  sufficient. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  We  have  taken  note  of  your  suggestions,  and  the 
minutes  of  this  conference  will  be  transmitted  to  Admiral  Bowles.  Be- 
fore President  Powell  runs  off  to  the  typical  duties  of  a  shipbuilder  we 
want  to  hear  a  word  from  him,  as  we  are  going  to  visit  his  plant  to- 
morrow afternoon.  I  should  like  to  present  President  Powell. 

Mr.  POWELL.  Gentlemen,  I  want  to  welcome  you  all  to  Boston  to  this 
first  labor  conference  and  to  extend  to  you  an  invitation  to  come  down 
and.  look  over  what,  under  Mr.  Bloomfield's  very  wise  instruction,  we 
have  been  trying  to  do  down  at  Fore  River.  He  has  taught  us  a  great 
many  things  about  the  employment  of  labor  that  we  didn't  know.  He 
has  opened  up  to  us  a  great  many  fields  for  obtaining  labor  that  we  didn't 
know,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  things  that  have  been  done  successfully  in 
our  yard  can  be  applied  with  equal  success  in  many  other  localities.  I 
want  to  say  that  in  trying  to  build  up  our  force  we  have  been  very  much 
beholden  to  a  number  of  agencies,  among  them  being  the  Boston  State 
free  employment  office,  the  United  States  Employment  Service,  the  Provi- 
dence State  free  employment  office,  the  Worcester  free  employment  office, 
the  various  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s  and  their  industrial  secretaries,  and  the  State 
educational  institutions  in  training  men.  Most  of  these  were  agencies 
that  we  didn't  know  about  when  we  undertook  to  double  our  force, 
and  we  have  received  the  most  courteous  treatment  from  their  hands 
at  all  times,  the  greatest  willingness  to  cooperate;  and  not  only  that,  but 
a  great  deal  of  judgment  has  been  used  by  all  of  these  agencies  in  the 
class  of  men  they  have  sent  to  us.  I  must  run  away  now  to  catch  a 
train,  and  in  leaving  I  want  to  say  that  I  am  sorry  I  can't  put  in  the 
afternoon  with  you,  but  I  am  sure  you  will  learn  a  great  many  things 
that  will  be  valuable,  and  that  we  will  be  very  glad  to  see  you  to-morrow 
afternoon. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  It  might  be  well  to  appoint  a  committee  to  take  up 
the  four  points  Admiral  Bowles  presented,  and  before  the  meeting  is 
over  that  committee  might  bring  in  some  amplified  statement  as  to  your 
position  in  regard  to  the  four  points  Admiral  Bowles  brought  up  this 
morning.  Does  this  accord  with  the  wishes  of  the  conference? 

Mr.  FERGUSON.  I  move  the  chairman  appoint  a  committee  of  five  to 
go  over  these  points  and  frame  up  recommendations  and  submit  that  in 
the  course  of  the  afternoon. 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       25 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  You  heard  Mr.  Ferguson's  motion  that  the  chair 
appoint  a  committee  of  five  and  draft  suitable  recommendations. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  The  motion  is  carried.  The  chair  will  appoint,  if 
you  will  be  good  enough  to  serve,  Mr.  Henderson,  of  the  American  Inter- 
national Corporation;  President  Dunlap,  of  Alabama;  Mr.  Larkin,  of 
Fore  River;  Mr.  Smith,  of  Newport  News;  Mr.  Kochersperger,  of  Cramps. 
That  committee  can  retire  as  soon  as  it  pleases.  We  will  start  with  the 
public  employment  office.  I  would  like  to  ask  Mr.  Clayton  if  he  won't 
introduce  the  subject  of  this  part  of  the  afternoon.  Then  we  will  go 
on  and  hear  from  the  officers  of  the  bureau. 

Mr.  CLAYTON.  Mr.  Bloomfield  and  gentlemen,  I  did  not  expect  to 
take  two  shots  at  this  interesting  conference.  I  can't  resist  the  tempta- 
tion, however,  because  there  is  a  great  deal  to  say  about  the  question  of 
employment.  I  talked  this  morning  about  the  labor  market  and  I 
want  to  say  just  a  word  or  two  more  about  that  subject.  Some  years 
ago  the  London  docks,  some  10  in  number,  got  into  a  very  bitter  strike, 
and  as  a  result  of  that  strike  there  was  an  investigation.  This  is,  roughly 
stated,  what  they  discovered.  Each  of  those  docks  needed  about  900 
men,  but  in  order  to  get  the  900  men  each  of  those  docks  was  trying  to 
keep  on  its  pay  roll  about  1,200  men,  so  in  order  to  get  9,000  men  among 
the  10  docks  they  were  carrying  on  their  pay  roll  about  12,000  men,  and 
of  course  you  know  what  happened,  when  they  started  work  in  the 
morning  they  took  on  the  first  900  men  that  came  along  and  sent  away 
the  other  300  men.  The  average  pay  of  the  men  employed  on  the 
docks  was  starvation  wages.  Nobody  got  a  full  week's  work  unless  .he 
was  exceptionally  lucky.  The  average  man  didn't  get  much  more  than 
enough  to  live,  and  that  is  what  brought  on  the  strike.  They  tried  to 
find  some  way  to  mitigate  that  state  of  affairs,  and  they  did  by  creating 
a  common  employment  agency.  They  had  some  little  difficulty  in  work- 
ing out  the  plan,  but  finally  they  worked  out  a  system  and  then  they 
discovered  that  they  could  not  only  have  a  common  employment  agency, 
but  as  none  of  the  docks  were  running  full  all  the  time,  they  could  get 
along  with  6,000  men  and  still  supply  the  docks  that  were  running 
full  at  one  time  with  900  men.  So  the  London  docks  sent  6,000  men 
away  and  let  them  find  employment  elsewhere  and  gave  steady  satis- 
factory work  to  half  the  men  that  had  been  there  before,  and  strikes  and 
trouble  on  the  London  docks  came  to  an  end,  and  they  haven't  had  a 
strike  on  those  docks,  as  far  as  I  know,  since  that  time. 

I  am  not  saying  that  an  employment  agency  is  a  solution  of  all  strikes 
and  troubles,  but  conditions  similar  to  the  conditions  that  existed  on  the 
London  docks  will  be  found  to  exist  everywhere  where  there  is  a  large 
number  of  help  employed.  Not  very  long  ago  I  was  in  one  of  our  sea- 
ports. I  was  down  there  investigating  some  conditions.  I  found  one 
large  dock  that  was  employing  600  men,  needed  600  men  and  was  employ- 
ing 900  men,  and  was  actually  getting  only  450  men.  I  asked  the  manager 
18713—17 4 


26      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

why  he  had  so  much  trouble.  He  said  he  couldn't  imagine  what  the 
trouble  was;  it  took  900  men  on  his  pay  roll  to  get  450  men  to  work  on 
the  dock.  I  found  that  most  of  the  men  were  hustling  for  some  other 
jobs  to  keep  alive  and  occasionally  going  down  to  the  dock  to  get  work 
there.  That  is,  exactly  the  same  thing  was  going  on  at  that  dock  as  went 
on  at  the  London  docks  10  years  before.  He  had  too  many  men  on  his 
pay  roll.  I  suggested  to  those  people  there  that  they  establish  a  common 
employment  agency  and  hire  all  their  men  through  one  centralized  point 
and  see  if  they  can't  cut  down  some  of  the  unrest  that  is  obtaining  just 
now  at  that  point. 

Now,  what  I  am  telling  you  is  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  the  principle 
that  an  employment  agency  is  the  means  for  establishing  a  reserve  for  the 
employment  of  labor.  There  are  always  a  great  many  people  looking  for 
work  that  are  not  capable  of  doing  the  work  for  which  they  apply.  A 
common  employment  agency  does  two  things:  It  gets  rid  of  the  waste 
reserve'  you  have  to  carry  to  get  the  necessary  number  of  men.  On  the 
other  hand,  you  will  be  able  to  send  those  men  somewhere  else,  and  it  may 
be  possible  to  get  some  other  men  who  are  engaged  elsewhere  and  whom 
perhaps  you  can  use.  That  is  just  a  suggestion  about  the  philosophy  of 
the  employment  problem.  I  have  been  advised  that  in  the  tenth  ship 
ping  district  to-day  there  is  a  shortage  of  something  like  twenty-seven  or 
twenty-eight  thousand  men  in  the  shipbuilding.  That  is  an  awful  short- 
age. That  is  probably  about  one-third  of  the  shortage  in  all  the  ship- 
yards to-day.  Now,  I  don't  think  there  are  competent  men  to-day  in  the 
United  States  to  fill  all  those  jobs,  but  I  am  sure  there  are  men  enough  in 
trades  near  enough  in  principle  to  be  taken  and  broken  in  to  meet  all  the 
needs  of  those  yards,  but  it  can  only  be  done  by  a  common  collecting 
agency.  It  can  not  be  done  by  you  men  each  working  individually  and 
each  working  in  opposition  to  the  other.  You  have  got  to  do  it  together; 
you  have  got  to  pool  together.  Now,  we  come  to  you  with  a  machine  for 
pooling,  and  it  will  be  serviceable  to  you  if  you  use  it  and  it  will  be  worth 
nothing  to  you  unless  you  use  it.  We  want  you  to  realize  what  an  em- 
ployment agency  can  do  for  you  if  it  is  used.  Right  there  I  have  to 
digress  just  a  little.  I  want  to  say  to  you  that  since  last  April  the  Secre- 
tary of  Labor  has  been  trying  to  get  from  the  godfathers  on  Capitol  Hill, 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  a  sufficient  appropriation  to  spread  this 
employment  service  all  over  the  United  States.  The  amount  of  money  he 
has  asked  for  for  that  purpose  looks  little  a  ridiculous  sum  when  you 
think  of  the  millions  that  are  being  spent  in  building  ships  and  the  other 
millions  that  are  being  used  in  supplies. 

This  is  a  wonderful  adventure  we  are  engaged  in.     It  is  a  romance  of 

the  world's  war.     Sixty  years  ago  my  own  folks  from  down  South  helped 

to  nail  the  coffin  down  on  America's  once  merchant  marine.     This  war 

will  bring  back  the  Stars  and  Stripes  to  float  over  every  port,  and  in 

hat  task  every  American  has  an  interest  and  every  American  may  take 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       2J 

an  effective  part.  I  want  to  suggest  that  while  one  may  estimate  the  cost 
of  tools  or  of  land  as  elements  of  material,  the  contribution  of  those  men 
who  are  working  for  wages  in  this  adventure,  should  not  be  considered  as 
another  element  of  the  matter.  The  worker  is  really  a  subcontractor 
who  is  using  your  land  and  your  tools.  He  is  contributing  his  ability  and 
his  time  to  build  these  ships.  If  you  take  it  from  that  angle,  which  is 
the  angle  the  worker  sees,  you  will  find  it  easy  to  put  yourself  in  his 
place,  to  understand  him  and  to  be  understood.  The  first  requisite  is 
cooperation,  the  second  one  is  a  just  appreciation  of  this.  I  don't  th,ink 
there  is  anything  more  important  than  getting  the  cooperation  of  the 
working  people  in  this  great  project  of  building  the  ships.  Put  your 
cards  on  the  table  and  let  them  know  what  this  is  for  and  let  them  know 
that  it  is  to  be  done  "on  the  level."  I  don't  believe  you  will  have  any 
trouble  in  getting  it  done. 

Mr.  FERGUSON.  This  is  a  proposed  telegram  to  Congress: 

,  We  are  the  representatives  of  thirty  shipyards  employing  50,000  men  at  present  and 
need  100,000  more  within  the  next  six  months.  Individually  and  in  competition 
with  each  other  and  with  other  employers  on  Government  work  we  feel  unable  to 
secure  enough  men  to  carry  out  our  shipbuilding  schedules,  and  urge  Government 
support  and  help  by  means  of  central  labor  employment  agency,  which  we  will  use 
jointly.  We  therefore  earnestly  recommend  that  the  item  appropriating  half  a  million 
dollars  be  retained  in  urgent  deficiency  bill. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  I  presume  that  is  supposed  to  be  a  statement  of  the 
shipbuilders  present  at  this  conference.  Are  you  in  favor  of  adopting 
this  statement,  a  copy  of  which  we  shall  telegraph  to  the  proper  authori- 
ties? Are  you  willing  to  adopt  this  statement? 

DELEGATE.  May  I  suggest  this  be  referred  to  a  committee? 

Mr.  BLOOMFIEUX  Is  there  any  reason  why  this  shouldn't  go  to  the 
committee  of  five  ? 

[It  is  agreed  that  this  matter  be  referred  to  the  committee  of  five.] 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  We  now  want  to  hear  from  the  actual  bureaus  which 
have  helped,  as  President  Powell  pointed  out,  helped  directly  in  the 
working  force.  Mr.  Burke,  who  is  the  superintendent  of  the  Federal 
employment  office,  is  here,  and  I  will  ask  Mm  for  a  statement  about  the 
organization  of  his  office. 

Mr.  BURKE.  Mr.  President  and  gentlemen,  I  want  to  thank  Mr.  Bloom- 
field  and  the  men  for  this  opportunity  to  be  present  with  you.  We  look 
upon  your  gathering  as  one  which  will  be  highly  educational  to  us  and 
of  great  profit  to  all  concerned.  We  fully  understand  the  great  work 
you  men  are  engaged  in.  We  all  understand  a  great  autocratic  power 
is  trying  to  drive  democracy  from  the  world,  and  it  is  our  wish  to  help 
you  in  this  great  work  and  to  furnish  you  with  all  the  men  we  can.  Now, 
as  I  say,  we  thank  you  that  we  are  here.  I  might  give  you  a  little  resume 
of  our  organization,  the  United  States  Labor  Bureau.  It  is  simply  in 
an  embryonic  state;  it  is  only  about  4^  months  old.  We  have  had  a 
little  bureau  in  connection  with  the  immigration  office,  and  I  have  been 


28      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

an  inspector  there  20  years,  and  my  colleague  here,  Mr.  Leonard,  has  been 
some  15  years.  Therefore,  we  have  had  some  experience  in  handling 
men  and,  in  fact,  we  know  about  every  business  in  New  England,  where 
it  is  and  what  it  is,  the  classes  and  races  of  men  that  compose  that  dis- 
trict. For  instance,  you  will  find  Lawrence  is  an  Italian  settlement. 
The  Greeks  settled  in  Lowell,  and  so  on.  It  has  been  my  fortune  to 
represent  the  Government  in  various  great  strikes  and  troubles  they 
have  had  in  Ludlow,  Lawrence  and  such  places.  Therefore,  we  have  been 
hand  in  hand  with  the  men  and  know  somewhat  of  what  we  speak. 
Now,  I  had  charge  of  a  little  bureau  down  at  the  immigration  office  for 
two  years  past,  but  we  gave  about  90  per  cent  of  our  time  to  immigra- 
tion and  the  other  10  per  cent  to  employment.  Apart  from  sending 
men  to  the  West,  where  they  call  for  twenty  to  thirty  thousand  men  at 
a  time  to  do  the  harvesting  in  Kansas  and  the  Dakotas,  we  didn't  do 
very  much.  We  started  in  May  and  we  have  been  running  five  or  six 
hundred  men  a  month.  We  have  sent  about  600  men  to  Fore  River. 
They  didn't  have  to  stand  in  line. 

Now,  we  wish  to  work  with  you  heart  and  soul,  and  we  will  do  our  very 
best  to  send  all  the  men  that  we  can  get  to  that  place.  I  will  say  that 
there  are  but  four  of  us  there  at  present,  but  we  hope  to  enlarge,  and 
we  are  able  to  speak  to  the  men  and  have  a  good  working  knowledge 
of  about  half  a  dozen  languages,  and  that  is  something,  of  course,  that 
conies  to  our  knowledge  from  the  Immigration  Bureau.  It  is  hard  to 
select  good,  competent  men,  as  has  been  said  by  a  speaker  before.  There 
are  a  great  many  men  who  apply  for  jobs,  but  are  not  fit  for  the  jobs, 
and  we  don't  know  what  to  do  with  them,  but  now  there  are  a  great 
many  men  coming  from  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  State,  and  we  are 
getting  very  good  material.  We  have  them  as  far  as  from  San  Francisco; 
so  the  future  looks  good.  I  have  been  down  to  Fore  River,  and  we  were 
received  very  kindly  by  the  men  down  there.  I  was  very  much  pleased 
with  the  spirit  shown  there.  It  was  "Hello,  Mike,"  "Hello,  Tom,"  and 
nobody  had  his  head  down  when  the  boss  came  along.  I  have  been 
head  of  a  shoe  factory;  I  have  been  president  of  the  Massachusetts 
Labor  Alliance;  so  that  I  have  had  some  little  experience  in  handling 
men. 

I  don't  know  whether  you  men  are  interested  in  wooden  ships,  but 
that  conies  within  our  work,  too.  Some  months  ago  I  was  sent  out 
to  get  the  names  of  men  interested  in  that  work,  and  I  met  Mr.  Storey, 
who  told  me  his  father  was  interested  in  that  work  some  years  ago. 
To-day  if  you  want  to  find  the  wooden-ship  builders,  I  am  afraid  you 
will  have  to  go  to  the  cemetery  for  them.  We  got  about  600  men, 
but  a  great  many  of  them  are  not  ship  carpenters,  probably  not  more 
than  30  or  40  per  cent.  It  is  very  hard  to  get  wooden-ship  carpenters. 
I  was  up  in  Manchester  a  few  weeks  ago.  They  expect  to  put  on  several 
thousand  men,  probably  two  or  three  thousand.  It  is  going  to  be  very 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       29 

difficult  to  get  them,  and  I  would  prefer  to  give  the  details  of  that  matter 
to  a  conference  of  your  own  committee,  so  that  you  may  know  where 
they  stand,  but  they  are  coming  in  every  day  looking  for  work,  and 
the  work  is  not  ready  yet;  so  when  things  are  very  favorable  I  don't 
think  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  get  some  workmen.  There  are  a  good 
many  carpenters  now  looking  for  work,  and  I  don't  think  it  will  be 
difficult  to  get  some  men  at  least.  Down  in  Maine,  Thomaston  and  other 
places,  they  are  building  some  wooden  ships. 

I  attended  a  convention  in  Washington  some  weeks  ago,  and  we 
passed  a  resolution  favoring  this  separation  of  the  employment  service 
from  the  Immigration  Bureau.  That  should  be  done  at  once.  I  hope 
the  appropriation  will  be  made  and  that  you  will  lend  us  your  influence 
in  setting  apart  the  employment  service  as  a  service  of  itself,  and  you 
may  rest  assured  that  we  will  do  "every  thing  we  can  do  to  help  along  this 
movement;  that  the  men  who  are  doing  this  work  are  doing  a  patriotic 
work  as  well  as  earning  their  living,  and  we  pledge  you  to  do  everything 
in  our  power  to  get  you  all  the  men  we  possibly  can  to  do  this  work. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  We  will  now  hear  from  Mr.  Dunderdale,  superin- 
tendent of  the  Boston  free  employment  office,  supported  by  the  State. 

Mr.  DUNDERDALE.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  the  Boston  office  was 
established  in  1906  as  an  experiment,  and  to-day  we  have  merged  from 
that  experiment  until  it  has  become  a  vital  necessity  to  the  industrial 
life  of  this  State.  In  the  Boston  office  there  are  14  clerks.  The  average 
attendance,  which  we  take  on  the  first  day  of  the  week,  on  Monday, 
averages  from  ten  to  fifteen  hundred  people  every  Monday.  About  one- 
fifth  of  that  ten  or  fifteen  hundred  will  be  people  who  have  called  in  the 
office  more  than  once,  but  we  have  on  an  average,  I  should  say,  about 
a  thousand  individuals  calling  for  work.  The  office  is  divided  up  into 
six  sections,  four  for  the  men  and  two  for  the  women.  We  have  the  men's 
unskilled,  the  men's  skilled  for  draft,  and  the  men's  skilled  for  clerical 
and  higher  trades.  Then  we  have  the  boys.  Our  office  is  on  two  floors. 
Upstairs  we  have  the  women's  unskilled  and  the  women's  skilled.  During 
last  year  we  put  to  work  19,120  people.  Unfortunately  for  us,  the  State 
doesn't  make  very  large  appropriations,  and  we  are  handicapped  in  that 
way.  We  can't  advertise  much  on  account  of  that  appropriation.  If  the 
manufacturers  will  only  advertise  and  tell  us  they  will  meet  men  in  our 
office,  we  can  do  business  in  that  way.  After  we  had  struggled  along  we 
didn't  seem  to  be  giving  the  proper  number  of  people  that  they  wanted. 
The  employers  were  urging  .us  to  do  our  best,  to  do  better  than  we  had 
been  doing,  and  I  sent  out  the  following  circular : 

To  ALL  WORKERS: 

Ships  and  war  vessels  must  be  produced  at  once  if  we  are  to  win  this  war. 

Our  allies  need  men;  they  need  food,  clothing,  and  supplies;  they  need  ammuni- 
tion to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy.  But  all  this  is  useless  without  ships  to 
carry  them  across. 


30      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

We  appeal  to  your  patriotism,  to  your  desire  for  freedom  for  yourself  and  your  chil- 
dren, to  your  desire  to  help  this  country  in  its  war. 

If  in  any  time  of  your  career  you  have  had  experience  in  this  work,  or  you  have 
friends,  think  over  the  following  very  carefully.  Our  sons,  brothers,  and  fathers 
have  given  up  their  occupations  to  rally  to  the  defense  of  their  country.  We  who 
remain  at  home  must  provide  the  means  whereby  they  can  carry  out  their  noble 
purpose. 

Think  it  over.     How  can  you  help? 

The  shipbuilding  industry  of  Massachusetts  needs  men  for  work  in  the  following  trades 
among  others: 

Planer  hands,  6-foot  planers;  vertical  boring  mill  hands;  horizontal  boring  mill 
hands;  lathe  hands,  60  inches  and  up;  engine  lathe  hands  (i6-24-inch  engines);  milling 
machine  hands;  bench  hands;  riveters;  holders  on;  coppersmiths;  shipfitters;  boiler- 
makers. 

If  you  are  not  at  present  employed  in  a  war  industry,  your  services  in  the  shipbuilding 
industry  are  wanted.  We  know  your  patriotism  will  urge  you  to  answer  this  call  in  the 
interest  of  your  country. 

Any  further  information  will  be  gladly  furnished  by  the  Boston  Public  Employ- 
ment Office,  8  Kneeland  Street;  the  Worcester  Public  Employment  Office;  or  that 
in  Springfield.  Write  or  call  in  person  and  we  will  talk  the  matter  over  with  you. 

Yours  for  AMERICA,  and  all  it  stands  for. 

G.  HARRY  DUNDERDALE, 

Sup  erin  tenden  t . 

I  signed  that  statement,  and  we  sent  it  out  to  a  number  of  people,  and  it 
was  well  received;  in  fact,  with  the  advertising  the  shipbuilders  put  in  the 
paper  we  have  had  letters  from  all  over  New  England  and  over  as  far  as 
Chicago,  people  asking  us  the  condition  under  wThich  they  can  work,  and 
we  always  refer  them  to  the  proper  agencies  where  they  want  men.  We 
found  there  were  a  number  of  men  out  of  work,  but  they  were  married  and 
they  didn't  want  to  leave  Boston  on  account  of  the  trouble  that  would  be 
caused  in  moving.  In  our  work  we  also  have  a  bulletin  which  we  send  to 
the  town  and  city  clerks  in  every  town  and  city  within  a  radius  of  30 
miles  of  Boston, .and  this  is  placed  in  the  city  halls  of  all  those  places 
where  the  public  can  see  it.  It  is  a  long  list  similar  to  what  I  have  read  to 
you  with  the  names  of  all  the  crafts  and  trades  men  are  wanted  in.  I  can 
assure  you  that  we  are  earnestly  endeavoring  to  do  our  best  to  assist  you, 
and  the  best  way  for  any  employer,  if  he  wants  any  man,  is  to  come  himself 
or  send  his  representative  to  the  office,  talk  to  the  men,  and  take  them 
away  with  him.  If  he  relies  on  our  sending  out  men,  why,  there  is  liable 
to  occur  what  occurred  with  me  about  three  weeks  ago.  A  gentleman 
wanted  in  Lowell  some  25  laborers.  We  sent  him  28.  He  was  paying 
27^2  cents  an  hour.  We  sent  him  28  men;  called  him  up  the  next 
day ;  not  a  soul  had  arrived ;  and  I  went  downstairs  and  saw  the  clerk  in 
that  department.  I  says,  "Mack,  what  is  the  matter  here?"  He  says, 
"Go  easy."  I  says,  "What  is  the  matter  here?"  He  says,  "We  sent 
these  men  out,  but  the  contractors  have  got  their  runners  in  the  street, 
and  as  soon  as  they  see  an  able-bodied  man  come  out  of  here  they  say, 
'What  are  you  going  to  get?'  He  says,  '27^  cents,'  and  they  say,  'We 
will  give  you  30.'  '  So  the  best  way  to  do  is  to  come  to  our  office  and 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       31 

talk  with  them,  and  if  any  of  you  want  any  men,  come  to  our  office  and 
we  will  do  the  best  we  can  for  you. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  Mr.  Larkin  will  now  speak  to  us.  He  is  the  employ- 
ment and  service  manager  of  the  Fore  River  Ship  Corporation. 

Mr.  LARKIN.  Gentlemen,  I  feel  that  the  eyes  of  all  the  shipbuilders  are 
on  us  on  account  of  a  lot  of  publicity  we  have  gotten,  whether  it  is  due 
us  or  not,  the  fact  we  have  been  able  in  these  extremely  abnormal  times 
to  build  up  our  working  force  in  spite  of  the  shortage  of  labor.  I  want 
•  to  say  that  this  problem  was  thrust  upon  us,  to  build  26  destroyers. 
The  first  thing  we  were  confronted  with  and  that  troubled  us  was  the 
labor  situation.  In  talking  it  over  we  thought  perhaps  it  would  be  well 
to  enlist  in  our  service  the  best  man  we  could  to  advise  us  in  our  work, 
and  naturally  we  settled  upon  Mr.  Bloomfield,  and  he  came  to  Fore 
River  and  spent  some  time  there"  and  acted  in  an  advisory  capacity,  and 
with  that  as  a  start  and  the  department  we  have  already  organized,  the 
machinery  we  had  in  operation,  we  were  able  to  go  along  and  absorb  the 
men  as  fast  as  they  came.  It  has  been  my  experience  that  the  public, 
Federal,  and  State  offices  have  been  regarded  more  or  less  by  manu- 
facturers as  furnishing  other  than  mechanical  help.  In  the  past  I  think 
that  the  majority  of  manufacturers  have  thought  that  their  principal 
function  was  to  furnish  farm  labor  and  factory  help.  In  spite  of  this, 
the  company  enlisted  the  services  of  the  United  States  Federal  Employ- 
ment Service  and  the  Boston  State  free  employment  service  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  Dunderdale  and  Mr.  Burke,  and  they  immediately  got 
into  line  with  a  spirit  of  patriotism  that  is  very  gratifying.  They  imme 
diately  began  to  send  us  men,  and  I  want  to  say  I  do  not  believe  it  would 
have  been  possible  to  have  adopted  any  other  method  and  to  have 
gotten  as  satisfactory  results  for  this  reason.  A  man  to-day  is  selected 
by  experts  in  the  bureaus.  Their  object  is  to  maintain  as  efficient  and 
as  effective  an  employment  service  as  they  can.  They  have  trained 
men  who  have  spent  perhaps  all  of  their  lives  in  interviewing  men,  and 
we  have  found  the  process  of  interviewing  men  from  these  bureaus  is 
practically  null.  A  man  comes  to  us  and  presents  a  card  as  a  riveter, 
as  a  ship-fitter  in  one  of  the  shipbuilding  trades,  and  we  are  almost  posi- 
tive he  is  going  to  be  with  us  if  he  will  accept  our  rates  and  our  other 
requirements.  To-day  I  would  like  to  say  that  I  think  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal functions  of  this  conference  is  to  get  behind  these  agencies,  to  use 
them  as  manufacturers.  Every  locality,  every  big  city,  every  industrial 
section  should  have  one  of  these  agencies  to  whom  they  might  appeal 
for  labor,  and  taking  our  experience  as  a  basis  I  am  sure  that  the  results 
will  be  profitable. 

Mr.  Bloomfield  spoke  about  our  service  department  there,  and  while 
the  getting  of  labor  is  a  very,  very  difficult  thing  to  do  in  these  times, 
it  is  just  as  difficult  to  absorb  labor  and  to  hold  them.  We  have  been 
through  the  same  experience  everyone  else  has  in  having  a  very  high 


32       REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

turn-over,  up  as  high  as  250  per  cent,  and  that,  about  two  years  ago,  was 
responsible  for  Mr.  Powell  giving  it  his  personal  attention  and  wanting  to 
organize  some  centralized  service  and  employment  department,  and 
with  that  idea  in  view  a  committee  of  workmen  was  selected  from  the 
plant  and  they  were  sent  to  the  Middle  West,  sent  to  all  the  up-to-date 
manufacturers  to  study  their  employment  problem.  They  did  this,  and 
as  a  result  came  back  and  presented  recommendations  to  the  president. 
This  report  was  sent  to  all  the  men  handling  men  in  the  plant,  and  they 
commented  on  it,  and  their  comments  formed  the  basis  for  our  future, 
policies.  Immediately  there  was  a  building  built,  the  hospital,  the 
welfare  activities  of  all  the  educational  work,  and  of  all  the  employment 
work  was  centralized  in  one  building.  After  we  got  this  centralized 
we  found  it  was  indispensable,  that  all  these  things  belonged  in  one  place 
and  they  were  all  very  closely  connected  with  each  other,  and  I  think 
to-day  if  we  are  not  having  a  turn-over  it  is  responsible  in  a  great  degree 
to  the  large  amount  of  missionary  work  we  have  done  in  the  last  two  years 
in  getting  our  men  to  a  point  where  they  have  faith  in  the  organization, 
where  they  realize  there  is  a  central  bureau  they  may  appeal  to  if  they 
have  a  grievance,  where  there  is  machinery  to  handle  these  grievances, 
and  all  sorts  of  activites  for  their  benefit  are  being  carried  on.  This  service 
department  deals  with  all  these  activities,  and  we  have  men  trained  in 
their  special  lines  to  handle  these  activities,  and  just  to  show  you  the  work 
that  is  being  handled  there,  one  day  about  a  month  ago  we  had  700  men 
in  that  bureau  for  different  reasons — about  400  on  employment,  about 
150  that  were  being  treated  ior  accidents  and  having  redressings  on  past 
accidents,  and  others  that  were  having  grievances.  Now,  one  thing  that 
has  been  established  is  a  system  of  transfer,  so  that  any  man  in  the  plant 
getting  through  in  one  department  may  go  to  this  bureau  and  ask  for  a 
transfer  to  another  shop.  If  he  finds  he  doesn't  fit  in  one  machine  shop 
and  he  thinks  he  will  fit  in  another  shop,  we  will  try  him  there,  and  the 
foremen  have  cooperated  with  us  in  a  very  satisfactory  way.  We  have 
found  they  have  been  very  anxious  to  do  everything  they  could  to  help 
us,  and  that  seems  to  be  the  spirit  that  prevails  with  the  whole  organiza- 
tion. 

Now,  another  thing  I  think  you  gentlemen  will  be  interested  in  is  the 
system  of  reports  which  should  be  made  to  the  managers  of  the  plants. 
We  know  the  manager  of  a  plant  has  probably  a  daily  report  on  his  desk 
of  shipments  of  materials.  He  knows  how  the  material  is  moving  from 
the  rolling  mill  to  his  plant ;  he  knows  at  all  times  the  status  of  financial 
conditions  through  the  reports  his  treasurer  submits  to  him,  but  he  doesn't 
know  anything  about  the  labor.  Now,  it  can  be  simplified  so  that  every 
manager  can  have  on  his  desk  every  morning  just  the  trend  of  his  labor 
in  the  plant,  and  we  have  just  a  simple  sheet,  a  daily  log  we  call  it,  of 
employment.  On  one  side  of  the  sheet  is  the  number  of  men  hired,  and 
that  is  divided  into  skilled  and  unskilled,  and  in  a  corresponding  column 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       33 

the  number  of  men  leaving,  so  that  the  manager  can  look  to-morrow 
morning  and  see  what  the  tendency  of  labor  was  for  to-day.  At  the 
end  of  the  month  we  make  a  labor  analysis  and  we  show  the  reasons  for 
the  men  leaving,  and  it  is  possible  through  this  labor  analysis  to  almost 
tell  what  is  going  to  happen  two  months  from  now.  The  way  we  get 
this  information  is,  we  have  made  it  a  rule  that  any  man  leaving  our 
plant  before  he  can  get  his  money  he  must  pass  through  the  employ- 
ment agent  and  tell  him  the  reason  for  his  leaving,  and  this  has  worked 
wonders  in  getting  men  to  take  another  job  in  some  other  part  of  the 
plant,  thereby  cutting  down  the  turnover.  The  first  thing,  I  think,  to 
do  is  to  install  into  the  man  who  has  charge  of  the  labor  work  the  idea 
that  he  is  dealing  with  so  many  men,  that  whether  the  man  is  a  mechanic, 
whether  he  is  a  semiskilled  man,  or  whether  he  is  an  untrained  man, 
he  should  receive  the  same  consideration,  and  we  have  tried  to  carry  out 
that  policy  to  the  limit  in  our  plant,  and  I  think  that  it  has  a  good  effect 
generally.  I  think  the  advertising  that  a  company  gets  out  of  handling 
the  men  in  that  way  and  treating  them  in  that  wray  is  well  worth  while. 

About  the  training  of  our  men:  Some  years  ago  there  was  an  ap- 
prenticeship course  started  in  the  plant.  A  school  was  started  there  for 
the  training  of  apprentices,  and  the  outgrowth  of  that  is  that  to-day, 
in  addition  to  apprentices,  we  have  several  courses  of  which  you  will 
hear  this  afternoon  from  the  teachers  who  are  working  in  that  branch 
of  the  work.  But  one  interesting  thing  that  was  done  there  (and  not 
by  any  educational  work  but  rather  by  a  foreman  himself,  the  head  of  a 
department)  was  to  institute  a  riveting  school,  and  in  this  school  they 
were  able  in  a  very  short  space  of  time  to  increase  the  number  of  gangs 
of  riveters,  which  is  a  very  vital  part  of  shipbuilding  work,  from  75  to 
130.  All  the  time  these  men  were  being  trained  they  were  doing  pro- 
ductive work.  In  addition  to  that  we  have  a  ship  carpenter's  training 
class  that  is  being  conducted  by  a  man  trained  in  the  work,  and  four 
others  in  the  machine  shop.  I  don't  know  whether  you  gentlemen  would 
be  interested  in  the  plan  of  an  office — taking  the  office  that  we  have,  the 
service  department  that  we  have,  and  eliminating  all  the  mistakes  we 
made  in  planning  it  and  taking  a  new  layout  which  has  just  been  pre- 
pared— if  you  are,  to-morrow  afternoon  when  you  come  down  to  the 
works  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  show  you  a  new  layout  which  we  think  is 
ideal.  You  may  be  able  to  find  a  number  of  flaws  in  it,  but  you  may  be 
able  to  get  some  good  points  from  it. 

DELEGATE.  I  should  like  to  hear  a  little  more  about  the  way  you 
trained  those  riveters. 

Mr.  LARKIN.  We  took  a  section  of  our  plant  and  put  up  the  skids, 
which  was  the  start,  and  then  took  some  submarine  plates  and  put  these 
men  to  work.  There  was  a  skilled  riveter  to  train  these  men.  This  man 
took,  I  think,  12  gangs  to  start  with,  and  the  men  were  taken  in  from  the 


34      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

employment  department  and  put  on  to  riveting.  They  were  kept  there, 
I  think  the  average  length  of  time  was  from  a  month  to  six  weeks  just 
doing  snap  riveting  work,  and  gradually  as  they  progressed  they  were 
put  on  the  ships.  I  don't  know  as  there  was  any  special  plan.  How- 
ever, if  you  would  like  to  hear  the  details  of  this,  Mr.  Frick,  who  was  the 
head  of  our  structural  steelwork  at  that  time,  is  here  and  he  can  tell  you. 

Mr.  FRICK.  That  whole  proposition  as  we  worked  it  out  was  rather 
crude  in  spots,  but  about  a  year  ago  we  had  80  gangs  of  riveters.  I  think 
our  average  per  week  was  running  around  90,000,  and  that  didn't  half 
meet  the  plan;  but  we  had  a  pretty  good  supply  of  labor.  Due  to  the 
energy  displayed  by  Mr.  Larkin  and  various  employment  agencies  you 
have  heard  about,  the  men  came  in  pretty  fast  and  these  men — we  just 
took  a  leading  man  riveter  (we  tried  out  two  or  three  before  we  got  one 
that  was  pretty  good)  and  we  took  various  motor  type  frames  and  floors 
and  spread  them  out  on  skids,  and  we  turned  these  gangs  over  to  the 
leading  man  and  when  we  got  more  than  he  could  handle  we  put  on 
another  leading  man,  and  after  they  learned  how  to  drive  water-tight 
boards,  that  is  ordinary  snap  work,  we  took  these  fellows  and  showed 
them  how  to  flush  up  rivets.  They  battered  up  the  plates  pretty  badly 
at  first,  but  we  kept  them  on  that  two  or  three  days.  Then  we  would 
put  them  on  some  part  of  the  ship,  down  below  for  example,  make  a 
bulkhead  in  the  hold,  and  we  got  men  there  who  turned  out  pretty  good 
work,  and  it  wasn't  very  long  before  we  had  men  who  could  put  on  the 
shelves.  Mr.  Larkin  said  we  built  up  to  130  gangs.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
we  built  up  to  175  gangs  by  the  ist  of  August.  Now,  of  course,  our 
costs  ran  up,  ran  up  pretty  high,  because  you  had  to  hire  these  men  at  a 
day's  rate  and  pay  them  a  pretty  good  rate.  We  had  to  in  order  to  get 
them  in  there,  and  it  took  some  little  time  before  those  men  could  work 
to  any  scale.  We  found  on  straight  work  that  in  three  months'  time  a 
good  many  of  them  could  take  a  scale  and  work  to  it.  As  a  whole,  our 
results  were  very  successful.  We  did  the  same  thing  with  calkers. 
We  had  a  leading  man  to  turn  them  over  to.  We  made  calkers  in  three 
months.  We  laid  down  a  body  plan  amidships,  section  of  a  boat  we 
had  under  construction.  We  took  some  of  the  plans  of  that  boat;  then 
we  would  take  a  new  plan  and  we  would  teach  him  to  lay  a  foundation 
up  there  on  the  floor,  and  he  would  make  his  molds  from  that,  then  take 
his  molds  and  take  them  out  on  the  ship  and  do  the  actual  work  and 
see  how  it  looked.  Well,  it  doesn't  take  an  intelligent  mechanic  very 
long  to  do  certain  things.  Of  course,  we  can't  expect  to  develop  a  good 
all-around  shipbuilder  in  three  months,  that  is  out  of  the  question,  but 
you  can  develop  a  man  who  will  specialize  on  a  certain  thing,  and  that 
was  the  line  we  pursued  in  our  work.  I  don't  know  as  there  is  anything 
else  I  can  tell. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  Mr.  McNary  is  in  charge  of  the  Emergency  Fleet 
Corporation's  next  move.  Mr.  McNary  has  one  of  the  outstanding  jobs 
at  this  time. 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       35 

Mr.  McNARY.  Mr.  Bloomfield  and  gentlemen,  I  take  it  that  the  gentle- 
men representing  the  Labor  Department  are  Exhibit  A  and  now  you  are 
going  to  have  Exhibit  B.  I  have  been  for  the  last  two  weeks  visiting 
yards.  I  haven't  seen  any  that  didn't  have  training.  Exhibit  B  con- 
sists of  reports  of  the  training  department  in  Quincy  connected  with  the 
Quincy  Industrial  School,  cooperating  with  the  Fore  River  Shipbuilding 
Co.  Mr.  Spofford,  who  is  the  director  of  the  Quincy  School  and  hasn't 
taken  a  vacation  this  summer,  has  been  directing  the  work  in  the  Fore 
River  Shipbuilding  Co.  I  am  going  first  to  ask  Mr.  Spofford  to  give  a 
brief  outline  of  how  that  work  has  been  going  on  there  this  summer. 

Mr.  SPOFFORD.  Early  in  June  the  Quincy  Industrial  School  offered  to 
Fore  River  the  cooperation  of  the  school  and  its  faculty  in  doing  anything 
possible  to  train,  partially  train,  mechanics,  apprentices,  and  new  men  to 
assist  in  the  production.  Aboutfcthe  i8th  of  June  we  had  a  conference  at 
Fore  River  and  it  was  decided  that  as  soon  as  the  day  schools  closed  we 
should  start  wrork  in  training  machinists,  especially  fitters  and  ship- 
wrights. Thereupon  I  started  to  see  who  I  could  find  for  instructors  to 
handle  this  work.  I  had  four  instructors  in  the  Quincy  school  that  had 
had  considerable  shipyard  experience.  Therefore,  we  selected  those  four 
men  to  take  up  the  work  and  then  I  got  one  man  from  the  Boston  Voca- 
tional School  and  one  man  from  the  Newton  Vocational  School  who  had 
had  some  shop  training  in  the  Fore  River  plant  to  join  the  force.  On 
the  ist  of  July  we  started  three  men  in  machine  work  and  one  man  in 
ship  fitting  and  one  man  in  shipwrighting.  In  the  machine  shop  two  of 
the  men  handled  the  day  work  and  the  classes  were  made  up  of  from  i  to 
1 2  men.  One  of  the  machine  men  handled  the  night  work.  In  the  ship 
fitting  we  put  on  two  men  because  there  had  been  no  definite  course  laid 
out,  and  the  instructors  would  have  to  feel  their  way  more  or  less.  In 
the  ship  fitting  class  we  had  15  men  to  instruct — five  men  from  the  ship 
fitting  department  and  five  men  from  the  steel  mill  and  five  men  sent 
from  the  employment  department,  new  men.  That  would  make  up  one 
week's  class.  The  following  week  the  men  that  were  instructed  were  to 
go  to  the  shop,  and  then  another  division  made  up  in  the  same  way  were 
to  take  up  the  school  work,  that  making  a  basis  of  education.  The  ship- 
wrighting we  started  in  with  six  men  and  gradually  grew  to  13  during  the 
summer  months.  In  having  a  school  which  is  State  aided  like  the 
Quincy  Industrial  School  we  had  to  comply  with  the  State  laws,  that  is, 
that  all  of  our  work  must  be  carried  on  on  the  basis  of  instruction. 

Of  course,  that  involved  production  as  well  as  instruction,  especially 
in  the  machine  shop,  as  the  foremen  in  the  machine  shop  had  got  to  get 
out  their  production.  We  carried  that  on  as  well  as  we  could,  and  the 
State  agent  was  down  to  inspect  us  once  a  week  during  the  summer 
months,  so  as  to  see  that  we  complied  with  the  State  laws.  I  will  say 
that  we  have  had  very  good  success  in  the  machine  work.  One  of  the 
foremen  told  me  only  last  week  that  he  was  getting  50  per  cent  more 


36      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

production  at  night  through  having  an  instructor  there  than  he  was 
before  with  the  same  number  of  men.  When  the  school  opened  in 
September  the  school  committee  felt  it  desirable  to  bring  back  all  of  the 
instructors  whom  they  had  elected  for  another  year  in  the  day  school 
on  to  their  day  school  work.  That  put  rather  a  difficult  situation  up 
before  me  in  order  to  get  men  who  were  capable  of  teaching  and  who 
knew  the  trades.  I  got  busy,  however,  and  got  enough  machine  men  to 
do  the  teaching  there,  and  was  very  fortunate  in  getting  the  men  I  got, 
so  that  there  was  no  delay  in  the  machine  shop.  There  was  a  delay  of  a 
day  and  a  half  in  the  ship  fitting,  but  we  were  fortunate  in  getting  a 
practical  ship  fitter  who  has  had  years  of  experience  in  the  ship-fitting 
trade.  He  is  now  handling  that  class  and  he  is  doing  very  good  work. 
I  expect  him  to  be  here  later  this  afternoon  so  he  will  be  able  to  explain 
it.  The  shipwrighting  was  delayed  for  about  a  week  and  a  half  before 
we  could  get  a  man  to  handle  that  work.  We  have,  however,  been  able 
to  get  a  man  who  has  had  considerable  experience  in  the  shipyards  and 
where  the  shipwrighting  is  principally  in  connection  with  the  submarines. 
This  man  we  got  has  had  similar  work  during  the  past  two  years  in 
making  model  submarines  in  an  adjacent  building,  where  they  assemble 
all  these  pipe  fittings  and  that  sort  of  thing  on  this  model. 

The  number  of  men  we  have  had  under  instruction  is  141  and  divided 
into  classes  of  10  and  12  in  the  machine  shop,  and  there  are  about  18  in 
each  division  of  the  ship  fitting,  and  there  will  be  13  in  the  shipwrighting 
as  soon  as  this  new  man  has  got  acquainted  with  the  job  so  we  can  carry 
a  larger  number  of  men.  The  foreman  in  the  shipwrighting  department 
told  me  Friday  that  of  the  13  men  whom  we  had  under  instruction  last 
summer  that  he  had  6  men  that  he  could  put  on  their  own  resources  to 
handle  the  work.  The  other  seven  men  came  in  later  in  the  summer, 
during  the  month  of  August,  and  of  course  had  not  had  sufficient  training 
to  do  that  work.  The  average  length  of  time  for  a  man  who  has  had 
mechanical  experience  to  complete  the  ship-fitting  trade  so  he  can  go 
out  on  the  job  would  be  approximately  four  weeks.  We  had  one  man 
that  had  had  a  great  deal  of  experience  in  laying  out  work  in  the  granite 
quarries  and  was  thoroughly  used  to  blue  prints  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
He  was  sent  out  at  the  end  of  two  weeks.  All  these  men  in  the  ship- 
fitting  trade  are  hired  in  at  the  rate  of  22  cents  an  hour.  As  soon  as  they 
complete  the  work  in  the  classes  they  are  rerated  to  28  cents  an  hour, 
and  then  they  advance  in  accordance  with  their  efficiency  on  the  job. 

DELEGATE.  I  would  like  to  ask  Mr.  Spofford  if  that  man  that  worked 
in  the  granite  quarries,  whether  you  kept  that  man  in  the  school  the  two 
weeks? 

Mr.  SPOFFORD.  No;  he  was  in  the  shop  one  week.  He  was  in  the 
school  two  weeks.  He  was  in  the  yard  three  weeks  before  he  went  out. 

Mr.  McNARY.  You  have  heard  a  director  of  an  industrial  school  that 
has  cooperated  with  the  shipbuilding  problem.  I  am  going  to  show 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       37 

you  some  real  live  instructors  in  shipyard  work.  These  instructors  are 
working  in  the  Fore  River  Shipbuilding  Co.  doing  their  part.  You  have 
instructors  doing  their  part  in  your  yards.  You  are  going  to  need  a  lot 
more  of  them.  We  are  going  to  train  a  lot  more  of  them.  I  am  going  to 
ask  Mr.  K.  P.  Barrows,  who  is  a  trained  ship  carpenter  and  an  instructor, 
to  give  us  a  brief  outline  of  his  work. 

Mr.  BARROWS.  At  the  present  time  it  is  rather  difficult  to  find  me- 
chanics who  are  sufficiently  skilled  in  the  general  line  of  shipbuilding. 
The  general  line  of  a  ship  carpenter,  as  you  know,  is  that  he  is  responsible 
for  the  form  of  a  ship.  His  work  consists  of  carrying  up  a  ship,  laying 
the  keels,  running  the  rib  bands,  and  he  is  responsible  at  all  times  for 
the  fair  condition  and  form  of  the  ship.  The  necessity  of  ships  at  the 
present  time  is  so  great  it  has  become  absolutely  essential  to  train  men 
in  this  work,  and  that  is  the  work  I  was  engaged  in  at  Fore  River.  The 
necessity  of  production  was  so  essential  it  became  necessary  to  train 
men  in  productive  work,  and  my  experience  leads  me  to  believe  that  is 
the  best  way  to  train  these  men.  I  had  under  my  charge  anywhere 
from  6  to  13  men  actually  engaged  in  ship-carpenter  work  on  these 
ships.  Part  of  these  men  were  engaged  in  checking  up  frames  as  they 
came  from  the  hands  of  the  ship  fitters  before  they  were  riveted,  and  in 
order  to  do  that  intelligently  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  be  able  to  read 
blue  prints,  and  the  way  I  endeavored  to  train  them  to  read  blue  prints 
was  to  show  them  the  blue  prints  and  point  out  line  by  line  as  they  were 
represented  on  the  print.  By  and  by  they  began  to  be  able  to  do  it 
themselves.  Our  checking,  of  course,  was  all  done  from  the  loft  floor. 
A  foreman  or  master  went  over  to  the  floor  and  obtained  the  various 
measurements  it  was  necessary  to  have  in  order  to  check  those  frames. 
I  want  to  say  my  work  was  altogether  on  submarines.  Then  I  had  to 
teach  these  men  the  exact  points  to  apply  these  patterns  in  order  to  see 
that  the  frame  was  according  to  the  drawing.  In  order  to  do  that, 
several  things  were  necessary.  It  was  necessary  they  should  read  prints 
in  order  to  see  whether  that  frame  was  cut  at  the  top  or  whether  it  went 
into  the  ship  as  a  whole  and  remained  as  a  whole,  and  consequently 
would  have  to  be  a  more  accurate  job. 

Now,  as  I  say,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  with  us  that  this  work  be  done 
on  productive  work  on  the  ship.  The  foreman  ship  fitter  had  charge  at 
that  time  of  two  ships  and  was  beginning  to  lay  the  keels  for  eight  more, 
and  his  time  was  entirely  taken  up,  so  he  had  absolutely  no  time  to  apply 
to  the  men  themselves.  My  job  was  to  run  around  to  the  various  men 
on  the  jobs  they  were  at,  assist  them,  see  they  were  doing  the  work  in 
the  proper  manner,  show  them  how  the  work  should  be  done  properly, 
check  the  job,  and  read  the  prints.  Now,  the  requirements  of  an  in- 
structor are  various.  In  the  first  place,  he  should  have  a  general  knowl- 
edge of  ship  construction  in  general,  a  broad  knowledge  of  ship  con- 
struction. He  should  have  a  special  knowledge  of  the  job  he  is  attempt- 
ing to  instruct  in.  He  should  have  the  ability  to  get  along  with  the 


38      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

men  and  the  foreman.  He  should  cut  out  entirely  the  idea  that  he  is 
trying  to  instruct  them ;  he  must  be  sort  of  an  assistant  foreman  work- 
ing with  them.  He  differs  from  the  assistant  foreman  in  that  he  is  not 
responsible  for  the  work.  The  whole  success  that  I  had,  if  I  had  any, 
was  in  chasing  up  each  man,  and  if  he  needed  assistance  in  any  particu- 
lar way  give  it  to  him,  go  over  the  print  with  him,  assist  him  to  read 
the  print,  make  him  read  the  print  to  me  until  I  was  thoroughly  con- 
vinced he  was  capable  of  doing  the  job,  and  from  that  time  watching 
him  to  see  he  did  the  job  properly.  There  are  several  ways  in 
which  we  can  assist  the  foreman  other  than  in  direct  teaching,  by  sug- 
gesting to  him  speedier  or  other  methods  of  doing  the  work.  If  a  fore- 
man is  at  all  touchy,  you  see,  you  are  up  against  it;  you  must  not  force 
your  ideas  upon  him ;  but  if  you  have  an  idea  that  you  think  will  work 
out  properly,  give  it  to  him  in  such  a  form  that  he  can  understand  it 
without  having  to  study  a  week  over  it.  If  it  seems  good  to  him,  try  it 
out.  If  it  doesn't,  don't  argue  about  it — that  is,  suppress  your  own 
ideas  for  the  benefit  of  the  job.  There  was  simply  one  suggestion  of 
this  sort,  which  I  will  not  attempt  to  detail  to  you,  that  has  been 
accepted  and  has  saved  them  a  large  amount  of  time  and  has  been  gen- 
erally adopted  throughout  the  yard.  But  other  things  I  thought  of  I 
kept  to  myself  until  I  thought  they  would  be  of  some  earthly  use.  What 
I  want  to  get  at  is  not  to  strain  yourself  to  get  ideas.  If  they  come 
naturally  to  you,  use  them.  The  class  of  men  I  had  under  my  instruc- 
tion, it  was  necessary  to  evolve  some  method  of  mental  calculation  for 
them.  One  thing  I  did  was  to  add  fractions  with  a  rule.  It  is  a  simple 
proposition.  You  take  your  rule,  measure  one  fraction,  stick  your 
thumb  out  and  measure  another  one,  and  keep  on  until  you  get  it  done. 
There  are  a  good  many  things  a  man  may  do  to  their  advantage  in  addi- 
tion to  instructing  the  men  in  their  trade.  I  found  that  a  man  who 
learned  to  read  a  print  of  this  particular  job,  after  two  or  three  jobs  he 
has  sufficient  confidence,  he  has  obtained  sufficient  knowledge  of  a  print 
so  that  a  new  print  he  can  pick  up  and  read  it  himself,  and  all  the  time 
you  are  trotting  around  to  see  that  he  doesn't  read  it  backward.  Now, 
gentlemen,  that  is  what  I  endeavored  to  do  at  Fore  River. 

Mr.  McNARY.  Mr.  E.  A.  Winter  is  not  only  experienced  in  his  trade, 
but  he  is  experienced  in  teaching  in  industrial  schools  besides  teaching 
in  the  Fore  River  school,  where  he  is  now  employed. 

Mr.  WINTER.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentleman,  I  have  divided  up  my 
little  talk  here  in  about  three  parts — types  of  boys,  kinds  of  instruction, 
and  cooperation  of  the  foreman.  In  the  first  place,  the  type  of  boy 
who  is  in  a  machine  shop  as  an  apprentice  isn't  any  different  than  when 
I  was  in  there,  and  in  a  good  many  cases  I  think  he  is  brighter  than 
when  I  was  there.  The  type  of  boy,  I  think,  at  the  Fore  River  school 
has  passed  through  the  eighth  grade  of  the  public  schools,  and  I  have 
been  able  to  find  only  one  exception  where  a  boy  thought  he  didn't 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       39 

like  to  work.  I  had  one  little  fellow  who  has  resigned  and  gone  out  to 
endeavor  to  do  something  else  for  his  country  in  some  other  line  of  work, 
and  the  day  before  leaving  I  asked  him  what  he  was  leaving  for,  and  he 
said,  "Well,  I  never  liked  to  work  anyway,"  and  I  said,  "Well,  the 
quicker  you  get  out,  then,  the  better. "  But  their  averages  for  the 
past  month  are  under  21  years  of  age.  They  are  all  over  16  and  under 
21.  They  are  boys  of  different  types,  all  English-speaking  boys,  and 
they  are  willing  to  listen  if  you  go  at  them  the  right  way,  and  they  all 
have  ideas  of  their  own,  and  I  have  found  they  are  more  willing  to  take 
hold  of  an  idea  if  you  give  it  to  them  in  the  right  way.  They  like  to 
be  dealt  with  in  a  nice  way,  taking  the  boy's  standpoint  of  the  situation. 
They  are  there  under  shop  conditions,  all  of  them  being  paid,  and  there 
is  a  bonus  system  attached  to  their  pay,  so  if  they  do  spurt  up  and  meet 
a  certain  production  they  get  paid  for  it.  It  was  only  last  Saturday  I 
had  a  boy  say  to  me,  "On  the  job  last  week  I  made  $2.80  over  my  regular 
pay.  "  I  said,  "That's  good,  John;  I  am  glad  you  did. "  I  find  the  boys 
are  willing  to  take  hold  with  the  instructor  and  go  ahead  as  he  instructs 
them,  but  occasionally  you  will  find  a  boy,  perhaps,  along  around  5 
o'clock  getting  tired,  as  growing  boys  do,  but  take  them  in  the  right 
way  they  are  willing  to  take  hold  in  good  shape. 

Now,  the  instruction  I  would  give  them  is  what  we  call  in  a  school 
"individual  instruction."  The  boys  placed  on  this  machine  and  that 
machine  puts  the  instructor  where  he  can  not  give  group  instruction  or 
class  instruction.  It  has  to  be  individual  instruction.  The  first  thing  I 
have  a  boy  do  is  to  take  the  blue  print,  and  after  he  has  located  on  that 
print  the  particular  part  he  is  to  machine  I  allow  that  boy,  as  far  as  he 
can  from  his  past  experience,  to  go  over  it  and  give  the  operations  that 
are  necessary  to  machine  that  piece  of  work;  but  I  follow  very  closely, 
and  after  he  has  enumerated  them,  if  he  has  omitted  a  danger  point  or 
has  eliminated  anything,  then  I  go  over  with  the  boy  the  different  opera- 
tions as  I  have  seen  them  and  as  they  appear  to  me  practicable.  I  go  over 
it  with  the  boy  and  enumerate  the  different  operations,  and  if  the  boy 
hasn't  been  able  from  his  past  experience  to  grasp  this  particular  type  of 
work,  I  say,  "Now,  John,  on  your  last  job  you  did  thus  and  so;  now,  here 
is  a  little  danger  point;  if  you  don't  start  this  job  right,  you  are  likely  to 
get  in  trouble  in  the  end,"  and  I  find  the  boy  goes  ahead  in  good  shape. 
I  don't  often — if  a  boy  has  a  piece  to  machine  I  don't  endeavor  on  the 
first  piece  of  work  to  put  the  boy  up  to  the  production  point.  I  let  him 
grasp  firmly  the  different  operations,  but  I  always  endeavor  to  guard  the 
boy  against  false  motion.  I  find  a  boy  may  in  his  early  training  in  the 
shop  get  hold  of  certain  ways  of  manipulating  a  certain  chuck  on  a  drill 
press  which  may  be  awkward.  I  guard  as  much  as  I  can  against  that 
after  the  boy  has  got  fairly  well  in  his  mind  the  different  operations  of 
that  piece.  I  say,  "Now,  John,  let  me  show  you  how  I  would  put  in  one 
of  those;  let  me  show  you  my  way. "  I  get  the  boy  as  early  as  I  can  out 


40      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

of  the  way  of  false  motion.  They  are  not  only  dangerous  in  operation, 
but  they  take  up  time.  Then,  again,  the  production  line.  I  might  say 
to  a  boy,  as  I  had  occasion  to  only  yesterday,  "How  long  did  it  take  you 
to  do  that?"  "About  so  long."  "Well,  let's  see  what  you  can  do  on 
the  next  one. "  The  boy  takes  that  up  in  good  shape.  I  find  that  more 
of  the  instructor's  time  is  used  up  in  training  the  boy  as  to  the  selection 
of  the  proper  tools  and  how  to  grind  them  than  it  is  in  the  manipulation 
of  the  machine.  Some  of  the  young  men  I  have  with  me  there  have  been 
in  the  Fore  River  shop  over  two  years — not  in  this  particular  department. 
The  longest  anyone  has  been  in  the  department  where  I  am  is  a  little  over 
two  months.  They  would  be  perhaps  on  the  drill  presses;  they  are  now 
up  in  the  lathe  department,  and  I  find  they  are  more  apt  to  grow  careless 
in  the  proper  grinding  and  setting  of  the  tools  than  they  are  in  the  opera- 
tions of  the  machines.  That  is  a  thing  I  have  to  guard  against  very 
much — to  show  the  boy  a  better  product,  that  a  better  article  may  be 
produced  if  a  boy  properly  grinds  the  tools. 

I  also  find  that  on  the  milling  machines  a  boy  is  apt  to  get  careless  in 
the  selection  of  his  cutter — the  proper  cutter  for  doing  a  certain  job — 
but  my  past  experience  has  been  that  you  can  convince  the  boy  of  hard 
facts  if  you  get  the  boy  to  thinking  for  himself.  I  never  do  for  a  boy 
what  he  can  do  for  himself.  Boys  are  very  apt  to  like  to  have  you  do 
that,  but  if  you  say,  "Now,  here,  John,  I  am  going  to  help  you  to  do 
this,  but  I  want  you  to  do  it,"  and  John  will  take  hold  and  do  it  with  a 
much  better  spirit  and  will  get  better  results.  At  present  I  have  six  on 
the  lathes.  Another  point  I  find  on  milling  machines  and  boring  machines 
is  the  time  the  boy  may  consume  in  rigging  up  his  work,  getting  it  ready 
to  machine.  There,  again,  you  get  the  false  motion,  improper  method 
of  strapping,  and  things  of  that  kind.  All  the  time  I  am  holding  the 
boy  down  to  his  blue  print;  that  that  is  the  picture  which  he  is  to  follow. 
This  past  month  has  been  my  first  experience  in  shipyard  machine 
shops.  I  am  a  firm  believer  that  right  on  the  work  in  the  shipyards  is 
the  place  to  train  the  boy.  There  is  some  difference  in  training  a  boy 
in  the  shipyard  from  training  him  in  an  industrial  school.  I  find  the 
shipyard  drawings  are  in  some  respects  a  different  type;  that  is,  their 
standards  of  measurement,  their  methods  of  doing  work,  of  illustration. 
Lots  of  ship  work,  as  you  know,  is  galvanized  after  it  is  finished.  There- 
fore, the  boy  has  to  have,  I  find,  a  training  along  that  line  in  regard  to 
his  measurements  and  in  regard  to  his  finish  which  would  not  come  in 
in  a  factory  where  grinding  and  other  work  is  not  followed  up  after  the 
milling  is  done. 

Now,  in  regard  to  the  foremen,  I  have  had  no  difficulty  whatever.  I 
find  the  foremen  are  very  willing  and  they  have  turned  over  these  young 
men  to  me  as  they  came  along,  and  in  going  to  the  foremen  I  have  had 
no  difficulty  in  getting  the  right  kind  of  work  for  these  young  men, 
what  they  need.  At  the  present  time,  at  the  Fore  River,  we  have  a 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.      41 

great  variety  of  work  where  these  young  men  can  get  instruction. 
Take  it  on  the  milling  machine,  there  is  a  great  variety  of  work.  I  have 
a  young  man  who  to-morrow  is  going  to  be  transferred  to  another  depart- 
ment. He  has  been  on  the  miller,  and  I  find  he  handles  the  different 
parts  of  work  there  in  good  time.  His  movements  are  mechanical;  he 
is  very  careful  in  setting  his  different  types  of  cutters.  I  can't  see  but 
that  he  is  just  as  careful  as  a  journeyman  and  he  takes  pride  himself  in 
being  able  to  do  that  kind  of  work.  The  foremen  have  cooperated 
with  me  in  every  respect.  They  have  a  vast  amount  of  work  to  do.  I 
can  appreciate  that,  having  served  as  a  foreman  a  number  of  years. 
I  know  a  foreman  doesn't  have  the  time  to  give  to  the  boys  the  minor 
details  that  are  necessary  for  him  to  develop. 

Mr.  McNARY.  Mr  Tomlinson  is  an  experienced  ship  fitter.  I  under- 
stand he  learned  his  trade  by  the  long  and  painful  process  and  is  now 
serving  his  country  by  training  some  young  men  in  ship  fitting.  I 
visited  that  work  Saturday,  and  it  is  worth  seeing  what  he  is  doing  over 
there. 

Mr.  TOMLINSON.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  my  duty  in  Fore 
River  is  training  young  men  in  ship  fitting,  and  in  that  duty  I  have 
taken  a  course.  The  first  part  that  is  necessary  to  teach  those  men  is 
geometry.  Then,  from  that  I  proceed  with  the  lines  of  the  ship,  taking 
the  body  line  and  teaching  those  men  how  to  put  them  down  on  the 
floor  so  that  we  can  strike  in  the  plane,  and  everything  that  is  required. 
Now,  that  is  somewhat  difficult.  There  are  some  that  are  absolutely 
new  to  the  blue  prints,  and  the  most  difficult  part  with  them  is  to  train 
them  in  the  reading  of  those  drawings  correctly.  After  they  see  through 
that  point  and  I  can  make  it  plain  to  them  that  they  can  find  the  lines 
at  center  on  the  floor,  the  next  duty  is  to  get  them  to  lay  down  the  various 
parts  of  the  ship,  to  make  the  molds  there  to  go  into  the  steel  mill.  I 
take  them  in  pairs — let  them  help  in  pairs,  so  they  can  help  one  another 
out.  That  is  required,  so  that  each  can  take  an  end  of  the  chalk  line. 
The  instruction,  then,  after  they  get  the  lines  down,  is  to  get  them  to 
lay  exactly  as  the  drawings,  so  that  when  they  have  made  the  molds 
the  most  essential  part  to  drive  into  those  boys  is  the  placing  of  the 
mold  so  that  the  job  can  be  assembled  perfectly.  From  that  I  take  them 
on  to  the  shelves,  the  sides,  etc.  Then  we  turn  to  foundations — boiler 
foundations,  engine  foundations,  and  the  auxiliary  foundations.  That  is 
somewhat  easy  to  them ;  after  they  get  familiar  with  the  blue  prints  and 
putting  the  lines  on  the  floor,  it  is  only  a  matter  of  making  their  molds. 
Then  I  have  to  instruct  them  in  the  method  of  lifting  molds  from  the 
ship,  which  is  somewhat  a  little  difficult.  In  that  process  I  teach  them 
the  way  to  apply  their  patterns  for  different  flanges  of  the  angle,  staple 
bolts,  shoes,  etc.,  and  the  method  of  marking  those  molds  up  for  check- 
ing one  with  another,  so  that  they  will  get  their  flanges  and  bolts  correct 
on  both  sides;  and  that  is  somewhat  difficult,  as  it  is  hard  to  make  them 
understand  that  one  has  to  coincide  with  another. 


42      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

That  is  the  main  part,  and  the  trouble,  which  is  overcome  after  a  little 

explanation,  is  offsets.     It  seems  hard  for  them  to  understand  how  to 

mark  up  molds  for  offsets.     Then  I  impress  upon  them  that  they  must 

see  the  job  absolutely  finished  from  the  drawing  before  ever  they  make  a 

start.     All  jobs  that  I  have  them  do  on  the  loft,  I  take  every  little  thing 

in  detail ;  every  small  mold  that  is  required  for  the  job  is  placed  together. 

After  they  have  it  all  I  have  them  assemble  everything  on  the  loft  floor  by 

tacking  it  together,  and  the  job  is  absolutely  held  up  by  molds.     Then 

they  see  the  operation  from  beginning  to  end.     Now  I  have  had  some 

good  success  with  those  men.     I  have  been  one  month  now  instructor. 

Of  course,  there  was  an  instructor  previous  to  me,  and  in  that  one  month 

I  have  transferred  six  men  into  the  yard.     When   transferring  those 

I  find  which  leading  man  or  foreman  he  has  been  sent  to,  and  I  send  a 

note  to  him  asking  him  to  give  them  as  much  show  as  possible.     Then 

each  week  I  see  that  leading  man  or  foreman  to  see  what  progress  they 

have  made,  and  some  are  making  fine  progress.     They  started  in  the 

school  at  22  cents  per  hour,  went  into  the  yard  at  28  cents  per  hour,  and 

at  present  some  of  those  men  are  receiving  40  cents  per  hour.     So, 

gentlemen,  you  can  see  they  are  progressing,  for  they  don't  pay  40  cents 

an  hour  for  22-cents-an-hour  work.     So  every  week  now  I  go  to  those 

foremen  and  make  sure  these  men  are  getting  along,  and  I  am  quite 

pleased  with  the  results  that  have  been  obtained  up  to  the  present,  and 

also  in  the  instruction  they  get,  the  development  of  all-round  types, 

bow  and  stern,  and  everything  that  is  required.     Among  those  men  I  have 

received  there  are,  of  course,  some  dull  ones.     That  is  to  be  expected. 

But  there  are  some  very  bright  ones,  and  the  trouble  with  the  bright  ones 

is  they  have  been  familiar  with  blue  prints  on  some  other  work,  on 

structural  work,  and  the  main  thing  is  to  get  them  to  understand  that 

ship  work  is  not  structural  work.     At  times  they  want  to  show  me  how 

it  ought  to  be  done  in  structural  work  instead  of  ship  work.     They  can't 

understand  why  there  have  to  be  so  many  corners,  why  it  can't  be  made 

square;  but  I  am  very  much  pleased  with  the  work  done  down  at  Fore 

River. 

Mr.  McNARY.  I  just  want  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  work 
given  by  these  instructors  has  brought  out  these  points:  First,  that  the 
best  place  to  train  men  in  ship  work  is  in  the  shipyard.  Second,  that 
whoever  is  giving  instruction,  if  instruction  is  his  sole  duty,  that  he 
ought  not  to  be  charged  with  getting  out  production  as  well  as  with 
instruction.  If  we  accept  the  testimony  of  these  men,  it  is  a  successful 
proposition  to  have  instructors  take  men,  give  them  short  intensive 
training,  and  place  them  out  in  the  yard  where  they  can  do  the  jobs. 
It  has  been  proven  by  the  efforts  in  these  different  yards  that  that  can 
be  done. 

Now,  we  have  had  a  description  of  the  work  that  has  been  going  on  in 
Fore  River  yard.  I  want  to  take  up  for  just  a  short  while  the  program 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.      43 

of  this  department  in  organizing  and  training.  I  have  spent  the  last  two 
weeks  in  going  about  visiting  the  yards,  and  I  want  to  give  you  the  im- 
pression I  have  had  in  talking  with  yard  managers.  In  the  first  place, 
every  yard  manager  I  have  met  has  put  up  this  notion  to  me.  He  said, 
"So  far  as  the  interests  of  this  yard  are  concerned,  that  has  gone  by  the 
board  anyway ;  what  we  want  to  do  now  is  to  build  ships.  We  have  got  to 
build  ships,  and  we  are  going  to  build  ships."  That  is  the  spirit  I  find 
first,  and  I  find  that  is  based  absolutely  on  a  spirit  of  patriotism.  These 
yards  are  being  run  by  American  citizens.  Now  what  I  think  is  needed, 
you  want  more  American  citizens  to  come  into  your  yards  and  help 
build  your  ships.  Some  of  you  tell  me  that  isn't  the  situation  you  have 
now.  You  are  up  against  some  pretty  serious  difficulties  in  getting  the 
help  that  is  interested  in  getting  the  ships  built.  Now,  then,  if  you 
are  going  to  induct  into  the  yards  the  number  of  men  that  are  needed, 
say  150,000,  that  you  are  going  to  need  in  the  next  six  months,  you 
have  a  tremendous  training  problem  on  your  hands.  I  congratulate 
myself  I  haven't  got  the  job  of  getting  the  men,  and  I  hope  when  you 
get  the  men  they  will  be  men  who  have  at  heart  getting  the  ships  built. 
I  have  been  talking  with  men,  and  they  say,  "If  the  United  States 
would  say  to  me  I  need  to  go  down  to  a  shipyard  and  learn  how  to  drive 
rivets  I  will  give  up  my  job  and  go."  I  think  we  have  been  dealing  all 
along  the  lines  of  how  business  has  been  conducted  in  the  past,  and  now 
you  are  up  against  a  war  situation,  and  when  it  is  put  up  as  a  war  situa- 
ation  to  these  people  I  know  you  are  going  to  get  them. 

If  you  are  going  to  train  men  in  the  yards,  the  only  people  in  the  world 
who  can  do  it  are  the  men  who  have  had  experience  in  the  yards.  It  is 
no  proposition  to  get  school-teachers  in  and  teach  them  how  to  build 
ships.  You  have  got  to  have  men  who  know  how.  In  the  second  place, 
do  these  men  who  know  their  trade  all  know  how  to  give  instructions  ?  This 
isn't  a  boy  proposition ;  you  have  got  to  get  men  up  against  hard  physical 
work  that  boys  can't  stand.  You  have  got  to  take  men  and  give  them 
a  short,  intensive  training.  You  have  got  to  take  skilled  men  in  the 
yard  and  have  them  give  instruction  to  other  men  who  don't  know  the 
work.  There  is  a  group  of  men  that  know  how  to  do  this,  to  sit  down 
with  a  man  that  knows  his  trade,  show  him  how  to  analyze  that  trade 
out  in  terms  of  training  so  that  he  can  utilize  that  knowledge,  put  it  in 
proper  terms  for  instruction,  show  that  man  how  to  put  that  over  for 
proper  instruction.  You  can  do  that,  and  then  let  this  man  go  out  in 
the  yards  and  give  that  training.  How  is  that  going  to  be  accomplished  ? 
There  is  a  very  small  number  of  men  who  can  take  their  knowledge  and 
use  it  in  this  way.  The  proposition  is  this :  In  some  central  yard  that 
has  large  facilities,  ample  equipment,  plenty  of  room,  to  bring  together 
a  group  of  men  selected  by  the  yards.  Now,  for  instance,  in  your  yard, 
you  would  be  invited  to  select  from  your  yard  some  of  your  best  me- 
chanics that  you  would  select  as  prospective  instructors.  They  would 


44      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

be  sent  to  some  central  yard  that  has  yet  to  be  selected,  and  there  they 
would  receive  a  short,  intensive  course  of  training  in  the  yard  in  giving 
instructions.  They  would  then  come  back  to  your  yard  and  form  the 
nucleus  of  your  training  staff.  That,  in  rough,  is  the  way  to  get  this 
thing  started.  If  you  can  take  150  men  and  give  them  that  training 
in  six  weeks,  as  we  know  you  can,  and  keep  that  up  until  the  fiscal  year 
in  July,  you  will  have  trained  900  instructors.  Now,  each  instructor 
can  handle  from  i  o  to  15  men  at  a  time,  and  in  a  year  it  will  be  possible 
to  train  75,000  men  by  that  method.  You  will  always  want  instructors; 
every  week  you  will  be  turning  out  these  instructors. 

Now,  then,  I  want  to  speak  of  some  of  the  details  that  will  come  up  in 
connection  with  that  sort  of  problem.  It  means,  if  you  are  going  to  give 
training,  you  need  a  training  department  in  your  yard  that  ought  to  be 
considered  entirely  separate  from  your  production  department.  One 
difficulty  has  been  in  putting  over  the  industrial  training  of  any  industry 
that  it  has  been  put  up  to  people  first  to  get  out  production  and  then  do 
as  much  instructing  as  you  can,  and  instructing  has  gone  by  the  board. 
The  only  thing  to  do  is  to  have  a  separate  instructing  department.  That 
would  mean  that  in  your  yard  you  would  need  instructors.  One  man 
would  be  your  prospective  director.  Now,  if  you  have  a  training  de- 
partment how  are  you  going  to  carry  on  training  and  not  interfere  with 
production  and  yet  get  production  out?  Your  production  foreman  has 
got  to  make  good.  I  find  in  some  of  your  departments  you  are  organized 
just  as  all  the  large  businesses  are.  Each  department  must  make  its  own 
way,  must  make  its  department  pay.  I  think  you  have  got  to  have  a 
training  department  that  is  independent  in  its  accounting,  but  you  can 
not  train  men  on  make-believe  work,  as  has  been  pointed  out  by  these 
men.  You  have  got  to  train  them  on  actual  work.  Your  production 
foreman  will  turn  over  to  the  instruction  department  work  that  can  be 
used  in  training  the  men.  When  a  man  has  gone  through  that  training 
experience,  he  is  turned  over  then  to  the  production  department;  until 
that  time  he  belongs  to  the  training  department  of  a  yard.  There  are  a 
great  many  problems  that  will  come  up  in  getting  that  thing  over.  The 
only  way  I  know  of  to  handle  that  is  this :  That  the  corporation  will  have 
a  specific  program  to  put  up  to  you ;  submit  those  things  to  you  for  dis- 
cussion, and  get  these  things  going  as  fast  as  possible.  There  are  so  many 
things  that  you  will  bring  up,  so  many  have  brought  up  already,  as  to 
what  must  be  done  before  the  training  can  be  started.  I  agree  with  you 
that  those  problems  must  be  met  before  we  can  put  those  things  over 
successfully,  but  we  believe  we  have  a  program  that  can  be  used,  and 
before  you  are  asked  to  go  into  it  those  things  are  going  to  be  thrashed 
out  and  a  very  definite  line  of  action  put  up  to  you. 

Of  course,  this  work  is  expensive;  it  costs  money.  You  will  raise  the 
question  right  away,  How  is  it  going  to  be  reimbursed?  There  is  no 
doubt  that  the  way  we  have  been  training  help  has  been  pretty  ex- 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       45 

pensive.  I  hope  we  can  get  some  figures,  after  we  have  had  some 
experience,  as  to  what  it  costs  with  an  organized  effort  to  train  as  against 
what  it  costs  with  an  unorganized  effort,  but  in  any  event  we  are  going 
ahead  to  try  to  meet  this  problem  in  this  way,  and  this  suggestion  I  put 
up  this  afternoon  is  to  get  this  thing  started,  and  what  we  want  to  start 
with  is  a  factory  organization. 

Mr.  CONNORS.  In  regard  to  that  expense,  besides  the  expense  of  a 
department  of  training,  does  this  new  department  in  a  shipyard  increase 
the  expense? 

Mr.  McNARY.  There  is  this  burden  of  picking  out  these  prospective 
instructors — paying  their  wages  while  they  are  being  trained.  It  is  a 
matter  of  investing  on  the  theory  that  you  are  going  to  get  it  back  after 
they  are  trained. 

DELEGATE.  Is  it  the  idea  to  have  the  shipbuilders  bear  this  expense 
while  it  is  going  on? 

Mr.  McNARY.  That  whole  thing  has  got  to  be  put  up  in  a  definite  form 
by  the  corporation  before  we  go  ahead  with  it.  I  am  not  in  a  position 
to  give  you  the  specific  answer  you  want,  but  you  are  going  to  get  if- 
before  you  go  ahead. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  I  think,  in  this  connection,  as  the  Navy  Department 
is  a  very  big  partner  in  this  enterprise — I  think  we  ought  to  hear  from 
two  of  the  gentlemen  connected  with  the  navy -yard  work  in  our  neigh- 
borhood. I  would  like  to  ask  Mr.  Litchfield  if  he  will  tell  us  something 
about  his  work? 

Mr.  LITCHFIELD.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  I  am  rather  surprised 
that  I  should  be  asked  to  say  anything.  In  fact,  I  am  not  prepared  to 
deliver  an  address.  I  can  simply  state  some  things  we  have  to  contend 
with.  As  you  may  all  know,  all  mechanics  in  the  Government  stations 
are  handled  by  the  civil  service;  and,  by  the  way,  there  has  been  no 
mention  made  of  the  civil  service.  In  fact,  however,  since  May  of  the 
present  year  we  have  increased  our  force  at  the  Boston  Navy  Yard 
from  something  over  2,000  to  approximately  7,000  men  through  the 
unaided  efforts  of  our  little  office  over  there  in  the  yard.  The  results, 
however,  as  these  figures  I  have  just  given  you  will  prove,  are  not  alto- 
gether to  be  despised.  We  had  the  same  difficulty  that  all  manufac- 
turing concerns  have  in  this  particular  line  of  work  in  getting  men  in 
specialized  trades.  I  refer  particularly  to  ship  fitters  and  the  different 
branches  of  the  ship-fitting  business.  Fortunately,  in  this  locality  we 
have  an  exceptional  field  to  draw  upon,  and  in  all  the  mechanical  trades 
we  always  have  a  surplus  of  applicants  that  we  can  call  in  at  any  time 
on  very  short  notice.  The  matter  of  instruction  is  being  taken  up, 
and  we  have  a  representative  of  the  Boston  vocational  schools  here 
this  afternoon  who  is  handling  the  matter  of  instruction  for  our  boys 
and  apprentices,  and  also  other  helpers  in  trades. 


46      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

The  matter  of  protection  against  infringing  on  the  rights  of  independent 
manufacturing  concerns  is  covered  at  present  by  an  Executive  order  of 
the  President  issued  several  months  ago.  We  are  not  allowed  to  take 
on  a  man  who  is  engaged  or  who  has  been  working  for  any  concern  on 
Government  contracts  within  three  months  of  the  time  of  calling  him 
unlesss  we  get  a  written  release  from  that  concern.  Of  course,  a  man 
lies  to  us  sometimes,  and  we  have  no  other  information  except  what  he 
gives  us,  but  in  most  cases  we  are  able  to  protect  the  manufacturer. 
And  while  sometimes  it  makes  hard  feelings  among  the  men,  it  works 
out  satisfactorily  usually  to  the  men  and  to  the  Government. 

I  don't  know  that  I  can  say  much  more  to  you  than  that  our  system  up 
to  the  present  time  has  been  adequate  for  our  needs,  and  at  the  present 
time  I  have  on  my  list  in  the  yard  thousands  of  men  that  I  can  call  in 
on  a  day's  notice.  Of  course,  we  get,  as  a  general  rule,  about  50  per  cent 
of  the  men  we  call.  It  depends  upon  the  character  of  the  work  in- 
volved and  the  frequency  with  which  we  have  been  making  calls.  Take 
the  matter  of  carpenters.  I  presume  I  have  600  men  available  that  I  can 
call  on  short  notice.  We  would  get  not  more  than  50  per  cent  of  those 
men  because  they  have  been  on  the  list  a  long  time  and  have  taken 
positions  elsewhere.  The  only  information  we  have  is  the  statement  the 
man  makes  himself  and  the  statements  from  previous  employers  and 
vouchers.  As  a  rule  this  is  very  satisfactory.  Of  course,  we  put  a  man 
on  a  test  when  he  comes  to  the  yard,  and  if  he  falls  short  of  our  require- 
ments he  isn't  hired. 

As  I  say,  I  am  practically  unprepared  to  give  you  a  long  address  on 
this  subject,  but  if  there  is  anything  you  would  like  to  ask  me  I  shall  be 
glad  to  answer. 

DELEGATE.  Will  you  state  that  agreement  of  protection  once  more? 

Mr.  LITCHFIELD.  The  President  of  the  United  States  and  the  Civil 
Service  Commission  have  an  agreement  that  no  man  at  present  employed 
by  a  concern  on  Government  contracts,  doing  Government  contract 
work,  or  who  has  been  employed  within  three  months,  shall  be  employed 
at  a  Government  station  unless  he  presents  a  written  release  from  that 
company. 

Mr.  TUKEY.  Gentlemen,  I  came  over  here  more  to  receive  to-day  than 
to  give.  I  have  been  on  the  job  at  the  navy  yard  since  about  July  23. 
Previous  to  my  starting,  the  lieutenant  commander  outlined  the  situa- 
tion very  roughly  to  me,  in  that  they  were  shy  of  really  first-class  mechan- 
ics ;  that  they  had  many  men  they  wanted  to  improve ;  also  they  wanted 
to  increase  the  number  of  mechanics.  My  instruction  was,  "Go  to  it." 
I  started  in.  The  first  week  or  so  about  all  I  did  was  to  get  acquainted 
with  the  yard,  and  I  think  Thursday  of  the  week  I  started  there  was  a 
condition  in  the  anglesmith  shop  that  required  that  we  train  some 
helpers.  We  had  several  anglesmiths  there.  My  first  problem  was  to 
outline  a  course  of  instruction  for  anglesmiths'  helpers.  They  delegated 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.      47 

a  man  to  me  as  an  instructor  that  was  a  former  blacksmith  and  I  should 
judge  somewhere  between  65  and  70  years  of  age.  Now,  you  can't  make 
a  blacksmith  into  an  anglesmith  instructor;  that  is,  into  an  instructor  of 
anglesmiths.  He  doesn't  know  enough  about  anglesmiths  to  know  that 
an  anglesmith  has  got  to  be  able  not  only  to  strike  sidewise,  but  be  able 
to  strike  left  hand  and  right  hand  stroke.  He  has  practically  got  to  be 
able  to  stand  on  his  head  and  strike.  So  my  problem  was  to  take  some 
of  the  men  and  make  anglesmiths  out  of  them.  For  quite  a  period  I 
had  considerable  trouble  in  getting  men  who  would  undertake  that 
instruction. 

Incidently,  the  first  week  of  August  wasn't  a  very  cool  week,  in  fact, 
it  was  the  hottest  one  we  had  had,  and  I  had  the  problem  of  breaking  in 
men  who  had  done  nothing  but  handle  a  broom  around  the  yard.  I  had 
my  knocks  and  bumps  in  that  anglesmith  proposition,  believe  me,  but 
as  a  result  of  it  I  succeeded  in  getting  four  new  helpers.  Just  about  the 
time  I  got  the  thing  going  where  I  wanted  it,  I  got  another  instructor, 
who  had  been  an  excellent  striker.  Just  about  the  time  I  got  him  work- 
ing under  full  steam  they  changed  over  the  shop,  and  it  took  a  couple 
of  weeks  to  carry  that  through,  so  about  the  time  they  got  that  straight- 
ened out  the  shop  was  in  such  a  condition,  the  shop  was  so  full  of  work 
they  took  my  man  I  had  for  an  instructor;  they  had  to  put  him  back  in 
the  shop.  Now  I  relate  that  experience  just  for  this  purpose:  I  realize 
that  production  had  to  be  maintained,  but  I  think  if  it  had  been  possible, 
in  the  first  place,  to  hold  the  other  anglesmith  we  had  there  and  let  me 
keep  that  man  I  could  have  produced  good  results  in  that  department. 
The  gentleman  I  had  for  an  instructor  in  the  anglesmith  shop  in  the 
first  place  was  an  elderly  man,  and  he  wouldn't  take  ideas  as  well  as  the 
younger  man  did.  I  had  several  experiences  with  this  man.  I  would 
tell  this  fellow  to  do  this  thing  and  the  other  thing,  but  somehow  he 
doesn't  seem  to  get  on  now.  Telling  him  isn't  teaching.  That  is  one  of 
the  difficulties  I  had  with  this  man  to  break  him  in  as  a  teacher. 

Now  you  are  not  particularly  interested  in  teaching  problems.  You 
are  interested  to  know  what  average  did  I  get  from  the  number  of  men 
I  took  in  for  anglesmith  instruction.  It  averaged  one  out  of  every 
three  men,  that  is,  for  every  three  men  I  took  in  I  could  get  one  good 
helper.  Now,  that  was  purely  manual  instruction.  I  took  my  man  I 
had  for  an  instructor  and  had  some  pictures  taken  of  him  in  the  various 
motions  of  swinging  a  hammer,  and  I  used  those  somewhat  in  class  room 
work,  and  it  worked  out  first-rate. 

Now,  what  am  I  doing  at  the  present  time?  I  have  at  the  present 
time  about  56  ship  fitters  and  in  addition  to  that  I  have  38  apprentices. 
Now,  those  56  ship  fitters,  I  have  one  first-class  ship  fitter,  second  class, 
down  to  fifth  class,  two  ship  smiths,  and  now  I  have  made  a  dividing 
line  there,  so  that  there  are  two  different  departments.  One  is  the 
mechanical,  which  is  entirely  supplemental  instruction;  one  the  appren- 
tice, a  type  of  instruction  which  must  be  a  complete  instruction  with 


48      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

my  ship  smiths.  I  have  him  in  the  shop  for  five  hours  a  week.  I 
divide  those  five  hours  up  into  two  periods;  that  is,  for  the  first  couple 
of  hours  the  men  come  to  me  I  give  him  what  I  can  of  the  technical 
nature  of  his  job.  I  say  technical — it  is  just  ordinary  grammar-school 
work.  These  men  have  been  out  of  school  for  1 8  or  19  years.  If  you 
are  going  to  give  them  anything  later  on  in  mathematics,  they  have 
got  to  be  repaired  in  that.  In  addition  to  that,  I  am  giving  them  a 
little  of  what  you  might  call  descriptive  geometry  as  they  strike  it  on 
the  job,  simply  to  help  them  in  layouts  in  the  making  of  drawings, 
making  sketches  from  drawings.  You  give  a  man  a  blue  print  and  tell 
him  to  make  a  drawing  of  what  he  sees  in  that  blue  print.  You  would 
be  surprised  to  see  what  he  gets  out  of  that  blue  print.  I  am  improving 
him  in  that  particular  part  of  it  so  that  on  his  job  he  can  make  some 
kind  of  a  sketch.  In  addition  to  that — quite  frequently  they  have 
to  send  a  broken  part  or  a  part  that  is  bent  up  to  the  shop  to  be  straight- 
ened. Part  of  what  they  have  to  do  is  to  make  a  sketch  of  what  they 
want  that  thing  to  look  like  when  it  is  sent  back.  The  Government 
very  kindly  provided  me  with  a  mold  loft  space  there,  which  is  about 
30  feet  long,  and  on  that  space  I  planned  this:  I  am  at  the  present 
time  having  the  ship  mechanics,  fitters  and  helpers,  take  drawings  and 
go  out  there  and  lay  them  down  on  the  floor,  but  I  tell  you  frankly  it 
has  been  a  guess  proposition,  that  is,  with  the  help  of  others  I  made 
a  guess  of  what  a  fourth-class  fitter  was  capable  of  doing,  and  I  got 
some  drawings  of  that  class.  I  also  called  in  the  services  of  a  first- 
class  officer,  he  being  the  only  man  I  could  get  for  an  instructor.  What 
I  have  him  do  is  follow  the  work  that  is  done  on  the  loft  floor.  Now 
this  instructor,  the  only  one  I  have  at  the  present  time,  I  am  using 
as  an  instructor  on  that  mold-loft  floor.  Incidentally,  I  am  going  to  try 
to  work  him  in  on  the  small  boat  workers  later  on. 

I  don't  want  to  go  into  the  details  of  what  I  think  should  be  laid  out 
for  apprentices  in  ship-fitting  work,  we  will  say.  I  think  this  at  the  pres- 
ent time:  I  got  hold  of  one  of  the  apprentices  we  have  there  and  I  found 
out  he  put  in  about  the  first  couple  of  months  of  his  training  there  in  the 
tool  room,  and  they  kept  him  there  until  some  one  thought  he  should  be 
taken  out,  not  on  account  of  his  knowledge  but  because  he  put  up  a  howl 
to  be  taken  out.  Now,  what  he  wants  according  to  him,  is  a  continuation 
of  that  training,  whereby  he  is  to  be  with  a  first-class  fitter  or  a  first-class 
mechanic  and  work  with  him  all  the  time;  but  he  doesn't  get  it.  He  is 
what  he  calls,  out  on  his  own  hook,  where  he  picks  up  what  he  can.  I 
think  that  boy  should  be  located  in  the  tool  room  for  the  first  two  months. 
Then  "he  should  be  put  on  the  ship  with  a  first-class  fitter.  Then  he 
should  come  back  and  be  put  in  the  shop  and  work  through  the  inside 
shop  operations.  That  would  occupy  about  15  months,  I  think.  After 
that  he  should  be  put  out  on  the  mold  loft  and  get  some  experience  there 
and  have  some  experience  on  the  blocks.  That  will  occupy  about  three 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.      49 

years.  His  last  year  should  be,  one  month  in  the  shop  and  one  on  the 
ship.  In  addition  to  that  he  should  have  each  year  one  month  in  the 
draft  room. 

Now,  you  want  to  know  further  what  results  I  have  got.  Generally 
speaking,  I  can't  check  up  my  results  very  well.  I  did  have  these  checked 
up  last  Saturday  night,  and  was  informed  that  nine  ship  fitters'  helpers 
had  been  raised  to  ship  fitters.  I  can't  lay  claim  to  all  that,  but  I  can  to 
some.  I  know  I  produced  the  four  anglesmith  fitters.  I  think  one 
method  of  increasing  ship  production  is  the  making  of  better  mechanics. 
I  am  not  doing  at  the  present  time  just  what  I  want  to  do.  My  general 
plan  when  I  came  here  was  just  what  Mr.  McNary  laid  out.  My  idea  was 
to  lay  out  a  plan  and  get  it  going  myself  and  then  find  an  instructor  to 
carry  it  on.  That  is  still  what  I  want  to  do.  I  am  not  positive  how  I  am 
going  to  go  at  it,  but  I  have  a  general  idea. 

Another  thing  I  want  to  pull  o"ut  of  this  work  is  a  method  of  checking 
up  the  ability  of  a  mechanic.  That  is,  if  a  man  is  a  fourth-class  mechanic 
and  he  wants  a  third-class  rating,  I  think  he  should  be  put  through  some 
kind  of  examination  that  will  determine  whether  he  is  able  to  hold  down 
that  third-class  rating  or  not.  I  think  there  ought  to  be  some  check  on 
the  shop  foreman.  Incidentally  I  have  had  some  of  these  fellows  come 
to  me  and  ask  me  if  I  wouldn't  start  a  night  school.  It  is  the  most 
interesting  teaching  proposition  I  ever  went  into  myself.  It  is  simply  a 
question  of  prepare  your  stuff  and  feed  it  out  to  the  men;  he  is  awfully 
hungry,  believe  me. 

Cooperation  of  the  foremen.  I  have  had  great  cooperation  from  the 
foremen  of  the  shop.  I  have  no  fault  to  find.  They  seem  to  think  I 
can  help  them,  and  they  have  been  very  willing  to  help  me. 

I  would  like  to  give  this  idea  which  came  to  me  very  naturally,  that  is, 
I  think  that  with  regard  to  instruction  in  shipbuilding  Mr.  McNary's 
plan  is  unquestionably  the  right  plan  from  anything  I  can  see  or  know 
of  any  educational  lines.  He  speaks  of  a  centralization  of  educational 
forces,  and  that  is  what  we  need,  I  think.  We  need  all  men  working 
together  on  an  educational  line. 

Another  idea  has  occurred  to  me:  Is  there  any  opportunity  to  work 
women  under  these  conditions?  Let  me  give  you  this  idea.  I  don't 
believe  essentially  in  bringing  women  into  industrial  work,  but  we  have, 
we  will  say,  a  man  running  machines.  Now,  is  it  possible  (women  are 
running  machines  in  different  parts  of  the  country)  is  it  possible  to  put 
women  to  running  those  machines  and  take  those  men  out  and  put  them 
in  as  riveters  or  ship  fitters'  helpers  ?  Is  it  possible  to  put  them  on  work 
that  women  are  capable  of  handling  ? 

Draft.  I  lost  three  or  four  men  as  helpers.  Now,  the  three  or  four 
men  I  had  trained.  If  they  hadn't  got  them  I  don't  know  what  they 
would  have  done.  We  were  affected  by  the  draft.  It  seems  to  me  that 


5O      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

the  men  that  are  drafted — it  is  just  as  feasible  to  draft  them  into  our  line 
but  that  is  beyond  me.     The  gentlemen  at  Fore  River,  I  think,  had  some 
start  over  me.     They  had  some  instructors  who  had   some  business 
experience  to  start  with.     I  had  to  take  my  instructors  and  train  them. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIEUX  I  am  going  to  ask  Mr.  Henderson  to  report  to  us. 

Mr.  HENDERSON.  We  were  asked  to  report  more  fully  on  the  four 
points  acted  on  by  the  body  this  morning.  On  the  subject  of  scamping, 
to  eliminate  as  far  as  possible  the  process  of  scamping,  it  is  recommended 
first,  that  the  employment  department  of  each  yard  see  to  it  that  men  from 
other  yards  doing  Government  work  are  not  employed  without  clearance 
papers  from  the  local,  Federal,  or  State  employment  bureau  at  the  point 
where  they  last  worked.  Second,  that  steps  be  taken  to  induce  the  Gov- 
ernment to  standardize  the  wage  scale  and  hours  of  labor  in  the  various 
yards,  taking  into  account  conditions  in  the  different  districts.  The 
second  point  is  the  regulation  of  the  distribution  of  talent.  It  is  recom- 
mended that  the  local,  Federal,  and  State  employment  bureaus  be  used 
as  far  as  possible  in  the  distribution  of  men;  that  all  requirements  for  men 
wanted  be  forwarded  to  the  local  bureau  and  advance  notice  of  contemplated 
release  of  men  be  given  to  the  bureaus.  The  third  point,  to  train  ship- 
yard employment  officers.  It  is  recommended  that  monthly  conferences 
of  shipbuilding  officials  in  various  Federal  districts  or  zones  be  held  for 
the  interchange  of  ideas  and  methods  of  employment,  these  conferences 
to  be  called  by  the  district  representative  of  the  shipping  board.  The 
fourth  point — it  is  recommended  that  each  yard  agree  to  install  a  definite 
program  of  shop  instruction  in  its  own  yard,  and  cooperate  with  indus- 
trial schools  and  such  other  educational  agencies  as  may  be  found  avail- 
able in  each  locality.  Now,  it  is  recognized  that  these  suggestions  will 
impose  a  great  deal  more  work  on  the  Federal  and  State  employment 
bureaus,  and  it  has  been  suggested  that  a  telegram  be  sent  to  Wash- 
ington reading  about  as  follows : 

We  are  the  representatives  of  30  shipyards,  building  ships  under  the  control  of  the 
United  States  Shipping  Board  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation  and  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment. Individually  and  in  competition  with  each  other  and  with  other  employers  on 
Government  work  we  feel  unable  to  secure  enough  men  to  carry  out  our  shipbuilding 
schedules,  and  urge  Government  support  and  help  by  meansof  central  labor  employ- 
ment agency,  which  we  will  use  jointly.  We  earnestly  recommend,  therefore,  that 
the  item  appropriating  half  million  dollars  be  retained  in  urgent  deficiency  bill. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIEUX  I  would  like  to  ask  if  the  four  items  reported  on  in 
this  resolution  express  the  sentiment  of  this  meeting.  If  so,  will  you 
make  an  appropriate  motion  ? 

[Moved  and  seconded  that  the  resolution  be  transmitted  to  the  propei 
authorities.] 

Mr.  BLOOMFIELD.  The  four  items  as  written  out  will  be  sent  to  Admiral 
Bowles.  The  other  item  will  be  telegraphed  to  the  proper  authorities. 

I  would  like  to  say  one  word  in  connection  with  one  or  two  sugges- 
tions made.  I  think  this  conference,  if  it  has  done  nothing  else,  has 


REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE.       51 

been  justified  in  the  very  clear  announcement  of  certain  policies.  They 
are  in  line  with  the  very  best  ideas  developed  and  believed  in  by  England. 

Those  in  favor  of  the  resolutions  please  say  "Aye;"  those  opposed. 
(Delegates  comply.)  The  vote  is  unanimous. 

Mr.  BLOOMFIEUX  We  will  now  hear  from  Mr.  Morgan,  who  represents 
the  International  Carpenters  Union,  and  we  are  here  to  have  all  the  views 
and  all  the  information  we  can  to  help  the  Government's  work. 

Mr.  MORGAN.  I  didn't  come  here  to  talk;  I  came  here  to  listen.  There 
have  been  many  phases  of  the  situation  here  which  have  been  very 
interesting  to  me,  and  in  listening  to  your  committee  and  your  resolu- 
tions, I  feel  the  set  of  resolutions  as  drawn  up  by  your  committee  will 
meet  the  cooperation  of  the  men,  not  only  that  are  in  your  yards,  but  the 
men  that  are  representing  the  international  union.  I  was  somewhat 
surprised  to  be  here  alone.  I  thought  other  international  unions  that 
were  interested  in  the  shipbuilding  industry  would  be  represented  here, 
but  I  find  I  am  alone  here  among  the  employers,  and  it  is  not  my  first 
occasion. 

My  international  union  has  gone  on  record  as  turning  over  to  the 
Government  the  entire  organization  in  whatever  capacity  the  Govern- 
ment desires  to  use  it  during  this  war.  I  have  just  about  now  completed 
the  job  I  had  in  hand,  and  it  was  quite  a  large  job.  I  had  charge  of  the 
cantonment  up  at  Ayer,  Mass.  I  had  3,600  carpenters  there.  We 
didn't  have  a  particle  of  trouble  on  the  entire  job.  The  job  is  practically 
complete  to-day,  with  the  addition  of  a  hundred  buildings  we  are  now 
putting  up.  They  can  show  you,  by  the  hearty  cooperation  of  our 
organization,  what  we  have  done  in  regard  to  the  building  of  that  camp. 
I  want  the  shipbuilders  of  the  entire  New  England  States  to  feel  that 
the  carpenters'  organization,  in  whatever  capacity  we  can  be  of  assist- 
ance to  them,  will  gladly  lend  whatever  assistance  it  can  to  you  men. 
I  feel  there  are  many  things  that  we  can  do.  One  of  the  speakers  here 
said  the  ship  carpenters  died  with  the  old  wooden  ships. 

Now,  I,  in  my  younger  days,  worked  on  wooden  ships  and  know  some- 
thing of  the  building  of  ships,  and  I  am  not  dead  by  a  long  shot.  I, 
however,  want  to  say  that  in  the  wooden  end  of  it  (that  is  the  end  I  am 
mostly  interested  in)  that  large  numbers  of  carpenters  can  be  trained  to 
take  up  the  wooden  end  of  the  shipbuilding.  There  is  no  question  about 
that,  with  their  knowledge  of  the  tools  and  with  their  mechanical  knowl- 
edge along  other  construction  lines.  I  feel  if  you  men  want  to  get  in 
touch  with  me  or  my  international  office,  which  is  at  Indianapolis,  Ind., 
we  will  be  only  too  glad  to  communicate  with  you.  At  the  starting  of 
the  war  I  was  delegated  to  cover  New  England  and  get  a  line  on  the  men 
that  were  willing  to  take  up  Government  work.  We  have  to-day  at  our 
general  office,  according  to  the  statistics  gathered  by  a  general  secretary, 
about  35,000  competent  ship  carpenters  that  are  registered  from  different 
parts  of  the  country  belonging  to  our  union,  and  these  men,  if  the  proper 


52      REPORT    OF    NEW    ENGLAND    SHIPBUILDING    CONFERENCE. 

compensation  was  given  to  them,  there  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  they 
could  be  divided  and  sent  to  different  parts  of  the  country.  We  have 
65,000  organized  carpenters  in  New  England,  and  they  are  familiar  with 
ship  construction  work,  and  as  I  said  before,  we  are  willing  to  cooperate 
with  you  men  in  every  way  possible.  I  realize  this,  that  without  labor 
you  men  are  powerless.  The  Government  can  give  you  the  material, 
can  give  you  the  contracts,  and  if  we  would  sit  down,  put  our  feet  under 
the  table  and  talk  in  a  heart-to-heart  way,  then  I  feel  the  labor  troubles 
are  settled. 

I  am  glad  to  know  that  the  shipbuilding  end  of  it  is  going  back  to  the 
old  apprenticeship  system  and  trying  to  train  the  boys  to  do  the  work. 
What  has  been  true  of  the  building  construction  end  of  the  game  is  true 
in  the  shipbuilding  game.  When  a  fellow  got  efficient  along  certain  lines, 
whether  it  was  riveting  or  fitting,  he  was  stolen  by  the  other  fellow  by 
a  little  increase  in  pay,  and  they  didn't  put  in  any  energy  to  train  a  boy 
along  different  lines,  whether  it  was  the  ship  fitting  or  riveting.  Now 
you  see  your  folly  in  the  past,  and  I  hope  if  the  war  brings  out  nothing 
else  it  will  bring  out  this:  The  boy  has  got  to  be  trained  along  certain 
lines,  and  you  men  are  the  men  who  must  train  the  boy  along  those  lines. 

I  thank  you  for  asking  me  to  attend  this  meeting  here,  and  as  I  said, 
anything  my  union  can  do  to  help  you  men,  they  will  be  only  too  glad 
to  do. 

o 


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